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CANADIAN
HOUSING POLICIES

(1935-1980)

Albert Rose

University of Toronto.

1980

Butterworths
Toronto

Printed and Bound in Canada.

The Butterworth Group of Companies:

Canada: Butterworth & Co. (Canada) Ltd., Toronto, Vancouver
United Kingdom: Butterworth & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London,
Borough Green

Australia: Butterworth Pty. Ltd., Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
New Zealand: Butterworths of New Zealand, Ltd., Wellington
South Africa: Butterworth & Co. (South Africa) Pty. Ltd., Durban
United States: Butterworth Inc., Boston

Butterworth (Legal) Inc., Seattle

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Rose, Albert, 1917-
Canadian housing policies (1935-1980)

Includes index.
ISBN 0-409-86315-7

1. Housing policy - Canada - History.
I. Title.

HD7305.A3R67 363.5'8'0971 C80-094402-X

Preface

In Canada housing has been a major economic and social policy
concern for more than fifty years. During the 1930s, attention was
directed to the miserable living conditions of those who suffered most
from world wide depression and failure within Canadian resource/
export industries. Canada’s population at that time was about evenly
divided between rural and urban areas and the full impact of the
housing problem in an urban society had yet to materialize.

In the thirty-five years following the close of the Second World War
the urbanization of our country has matched that of the United States,
Great Britain, France and West Germany; by the end of this century
Canadians will be almost totally identified in our statistical records as
urban dwellers. The photographs of the 1930s, which have recently
been appearing in new books for the edification of those who have
known nothing but Western industrial affluence, now seem like interest-
ing pictures drawn from the prints of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. In short, although we have by no means grappled successfully
with the problem of poor rural housing, our attention has turned. since
the beginning of the 1950s to the enormous problem of providing
adequate housing for burgeoning urban populations; these have been
swollen each year by most of the 150,000 to 250,000 newcomers from
other nations, often far different in economic and cultural backgrounds.

It is not appropriate to continue the argument, so dear to politicians
and social workers, that Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis.
The truth is that throughout the twentieth century Canada has been in
the midst of a continuous housing crisis. In his first book, Humphrey

iti

iv Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Carver* analyzed the facts of Canada’s housing production with respect
to the best available data of the housing needs of Canadians from 1920
through 1945. It became perfectly clear that as a nation we had not,
for a quarter of a century before the end of World War II, met the
human and statistical criteria for decent and adequate housing accom-
modation.

Nevertheless, the major political parties in Canada, whether federal
or provincial, did not see the matter of housing as an issue of significant
concern for the vast majority of Canadian voters. In this judgment they
were probably correct but by the close of the 1950s, following fifteen
years of expansion in population (through a combination of one of the
highest birth rates in the world and extensive immigration), this political
judgment began to change. Canada had changed from a nation of
tenants during the 1930s and early 1940s to one of homeowners by
the late 1950s as a consequence of federal and provincial housing
policies, legislation and initiatives.

By the end of the 1950s most major Canadian urban centres had
exhausted their available raw land, not to speak of the supply of
serviced land ready for construction of housing. It was foreseeable
that a small group of relatively large producers of apartment dwellings
would arise. Within the next decade (1959-1968) they accounted for
as much as one-half to two thirds of the total new housing starts, with
variations from region to region and from metropolis to metropolis.

Canadians reverted to a nation of tenants — this time in high-rise
apartment buildings rather than in smaller structures —- and the poli-
tical climate changed as a direct result. There was tremendous concern
among many groups about the very modest production of dwellings
for low-income families during the years 1955-1964, These groups
worked very hard to influence the Government of Canada and Central
Mortgage and Housing Corporation to amend the National Housing Act
towards the goal of substantially increasing the supply of housing for
low-income individuals and families.

On the other hand, the provincial governments began to realize after
1964 how their political destinies were significantly tied to the quality
of life in an urban environment. By 1967, John Robarts, the former
premier of Ontario, cited as a strong argument for re-election his
performance in the production of housing in general, and of public
housing in particular, through the Ontario Housing Corporation. A
year later, the new federal leader, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had fulfilled
one of his election promises by appointing Paul Hellyer, the man who
placed second to him in the competition for leadership of the Liberal

*H. S. M. Carver, Houses for Canadians (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1948) p. 3-47.

Preface ¥

Party, to direct the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development,
whose work covered the period September 1968 to April 1969.

In 1970 the Government of Canada created a Ministry of State
for Urban Affairs, with responsibility for the formulation of housing
policy being implemented through the Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation in conjunction with the provincial government housing
corporations and other agencies. In short, housing policy had arrived
as a political weapon in the hands of members of the two senior levels
of government. It was another five years before regional and municipal
governments began to assume — after a diminution of responsibility
for nearly twenty years — the kind of role in policy formulation and
implementation originally assigned to them during the early postwar
period.

My concern here not being mainly statistical, is with a description
of the role of governments and the changing shifts and currents in
policy which are a consequence of political, economic and social forces.
Much of the material covering the years 1940-1968 (Chapter 3 and
Appendix A) was originally drafted for the Canadian Conference on
Housing held in Toronto during November 1968. A great deal has
happened during the ensuing years with respect to government inter-
vention in the housing market at all levels.

Housing policy has not merely arrived as a political phenomenon in
terms of appeals to the electorate for favour or rejection, but is an
important component of intergovernmental relationships, and a signifi-
cant aspect of economic, social and political considerations at a time
in Canadian history when the central issues are said to be those of
inflation and unemployment. There are few segments of the Canadian
economy in which price inflation has been greater and there has been
no aspect of the inflationary process which has hurt or may hurt
Canadians more significantly than its impact upon the production and
distribution of housing accommodation for Canadians. There are few
segments of the Canadian economy in which the burden of unemploy-
ment has been greater than in the construction industry, including the
building of housing accommodation. There is a surplus of houses for
sale in the early 1980s, yet many Canadian families are unable to afford
accommodation.

From the outset, my objective has been to clarify the nature of
Canadian housing policies, formulated by government and emerging
from the struggle for hegemony between the various levels of govern-
ment, primarily by tracing the history of legislation and its implementa-
tion. Members of the private residential housebuilding industry make
decisions concerning their annual and five-year plans for land purchase
and ultimate housebuilding activity; by doing so they may affect
materially the supply and cost of housing. However, all their plans are

vi Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

very significantly influenced by the actions of government. That is not
to deny that the lobbying or public information role of very large
economic units in the housing industry may be considerable, or that
their land acquisition policies have important economic and social
consequences. It is rather to indicate the major emphasis of this work:
government policies.

I cannot offer any simple or guaranteed solution to the dilemmas
which face Canada, its provinces and municipalities, in the continuous
efforts of providing adequate housing accommodation for various
income groups in Canadian society. While I am all too conscious of
our many deficiencies in this field, Canada also has much to be proud
of in its record of accomplishment. The variety of regions and regional
jurisdictions within the vast geographical area which is Canada and a
whole gamut of international and national economic forces challenge
our capacity to provide human and physical services for our people.
To acknowledge that challenge is not to accept defeat.

In writing a book on a subject as complex as Canadian housing
policies an author becomes obligated to a great many persons who
offer advice, criticism and support. This book has been published with
the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada,
using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada. Minor portions of chapter eight have been published
elsewhere (Albert Rose, “The Impact of Recent Trends in Social
Housing Policies,” in Urban Housing Markets: Recent Directions in
Research and Policy, edited by Bourne and Hitchcock and published
by the University of Toronto Press, 1978). I would like to acknowledge
the pioneering work of Peter Spurr (published by James Lorimer &
Company), Michael Dennis and Susan Fish. I extend thanks to all
Canadians who, by joining efforts with their fellow citizens, and by
exerting pressure on their elected representatives as well as their
appointed officials, have caused the development of better housing
policies.

Albert Rose

Il.
Il.
IV.

VI.
VII.
VII.

Contents

Housing Policies in their Political, Economic
and Social Contexts ..............

Essential Elements of a Canadian Housing Policy ............

Housing Policy in Canada 1940-1968 000

National Housing Policies for Urban Canada:

The 1970s and Thereafter 000.0000.

New Housing Policy Initiatives by Provincial and

Local Governments o0..00......000ccecue Eien nee

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs ............0.....000.

Housing for Low-Income Families: The Importance
of Attitudes 2.00.0...

Canada’s Housing Problem: Insoluble Crisis or
Intractable Dilemma? ..............

Appendix A: Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban

‘Renewaltin the 1960s‘. ce ct 2h eo ea On or miarsbel ois tte!

vii

CHAPTER 1

Housing Policies in Their Political,
Economic and Social Contexts

Throughout the more than eleven decades of Canada’s national
existence, there have been few periods in which there were not expres-
sions of concern about the housing and living conditions experienced
by some Canadians. These concerns were expressed by elected repre-
sentatives within local councils, by journalists, by church groups, by
charitable organizations! and by individuals. In particular, the years
prior to and after the First World War were marked by a great deal
of interest in the orderly development of Canada’s newly emerging
cities and smaller urban centres.?

The untoward explosion which occurred in Halifax harbour in 1917
may mark the beginning of concerted public intervention and assump-
tion of responsibility in the field of housing. This explosion destroyed
a significant proportion of the housing stock adjacent to the harbour.
As a consequence, a number of dwellings were built to be inhabited
by families who had lost their homes; these houses remain inhabited
today. Moreover, the problems consequent upon the disaster and the
need for government intervention to assist disadvantaged families led
directly to the creation of the first provincial housing authority, the
Nova Scotia Housing Commission.

Nevertheless, with the exception of some housing which was built
for veterans returning from the First World War under the terms of
legislation passed by the Government of Canada, and 334 dwelling

2 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

units built by the Toronto Housing Company,’ there was relatively
little continuous governmental participation until the middle and late
1930s. During the 1920s, as Carver pointed out,* the Canadian
economy was relatively buoyant and, in company with the United
States, Canada enjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity. Housing
built during the 1920s was created by small builders (for purchase)
within the private market. Insofar as Canadians thought very much
about the housing conditions of those individuals and families in the
lower half of the income scale, it was assumed that the “filtering-down”
process worked satisfactorily. This assumption, long since discredited
but widely held by more affluent members of the community to this
day, involves the notion that when the well-to-do leave dwellings which
they inhabit, presumably for more adequate housing, their previous
dwellings are reduced in value and become available to those of lesser
means. Those of moderate income who improve their accommodation
by acquiring more space or elegance leave other houses which ultimately
filter down to the very poor.

THE COMPLEXITIES OF HOUSING MARKET ANALYSIS

The field of housing is one of the most complicated aspects of
modern industrial societies, if not the most complex. It may indeed be
exceeded in scope and difficulty only by the field of health care. In
western industrial societies, housing has become both a private activity
in the market place and a public activity on behalf of those individuals
and families who, due to insufficiency of resources, seem incapable of
meeting their housing requirements. Such “resources” are usually
considered to be financial, such as the proportion of income which
can be devoted to housing without serious deterioration of the family’s
standard of living, but they may embrace such intangibles as motivation,
the degree of sacrifice which an individual or family is prepared to
make, and many other emotional aspects. (The nature of the house
inhabited by a family, the neighbourhood in which it lives, and the
amenities in that neighbourhood, are all components of the social class
to which the family is considered to belong and some measure of
the regard in which the family is held by its friends, relatives and
neighbours. )

In a capitalistic market economy the housing industry, by definition,
must produce for those who have the resources to take its products off
the market, otherwise its entrepreneurs would be forced out of business.
This has meant, and can only mean, that adequate housing is not
provided automatically in western industrial societies for those persons
with modest or inadequate resources. Under these circumstances

Political, Economic and Social Contexts 3

governments have intervened and a variety of housing programs have
been developed in Canada and in other countries to meet the needs of
those who must be assisted by the resources of society as a whole.

The “government of housing”, as Donnison has pointed out,>
proceeds on a variety of levels of conceptualization. Many persons
believe the provision of housing to be quite different, in philosophical
terms, than the provision of food, clothing, household facilities, and
other necessities of life. There is a moral problem faced by an
important segment of the population which holds the view that there
is something unethical in process when housing must be provided
with state assistance unless there is some disadvantage within the
individual and family which requires such assistance. In short, a
disability must be recognized, examined and carefully evaluated before
such assistance can be rendered and especially if it is to be provided
for an extended period. This is simply one example of the attitudes
many people maintain with respect to persons who are poor in industrial
societies where poverty is no longer the norm.®

THE POLITICAL CONTEXT

No government is likely to take the requisite action to provide
housing for those who require societal intervention unless there appears
to be a political advantage or unless the pressure for action on the
government in power is so strong that it can no longer be resisted. In
Canada, the intervention of government in the 1930s was fundamentally
a response to economic problems which spawned very significant poli-
tical problems. The Conservative government, which appeared to be
threatened with the loss of power as an election approached in 1935,
passed a series of legislative measures described colloquially as
“Canada’s New Deal”, presumably because they appeared to be emula-
tion of American measures of 1933 and thereafter. The only piece of
legislation which survived the test of constitutionality in 1935 was the
Dominion Housing Act.” The fact that the legislation was passed is a
reflection of political and economic circumstances; it cannot by any
means be considered to be indicative of a conviction on the part of
the then federal government that state intervention in the housing
market was either normal or desirable.

The passage of the first National Housing Act in 1938 can be
attributed to similar inducements as unemployment persisted under the
new Liberal government and a further economic recession occurred in
1937-38.8 The NHA was a political and economic act by a government
hoping to stimulate employment by broadening the terms of the 1935
legislation. At no time prior to the Second World War did it appear

4 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

to the majority of Canadians that governmental intervention in the
field of housing was likely to persist and expand.® Viewpoints have
since changed but it is still a moot point whether the majority of our
citizens in the late 1970s view public activity in the field of housing as
desirable, permanent and inevitable.

The first series of decisions must be taken at the local level, within
municipal councils. Not only in federal nations like Canada or the
United States but in a nation like the United Kingdom where there
are no States or provinces, the fact remains that housing accommodation
is provided, and very often financed in part, administered and managed,
within the physical boundaries and the planning jurisdiction of a local
government. By definition, the land upon which the housing rests is
within a municipality or regional government; those individuals or
families who require governmental assistance in meeting their housing
requirements are residents and taxpayers of a locality or a regional
governmental area. Local governments in most Canadian provinces
have a good deal of “negative capacity” to forestall the creation of
housing accommodation under governmental auspices if they are dis-
inclined to favour such activities. These capacities rest in their powers
to zone land, to regulate the pace and the specifics of urban develop-
ment, and to develop standards of maintenance and occupancy within
the existing housing stock.

In Canada, the provincial governments, as well, have substantial
power to facilitate or to oppose inter-governmental activity within the
field of housing. They have exercised these powers when they so chose
and the fundamental political question remains the one enunciated
previously: to what degree is there advantage to the government in
power in engaging in this important economic and social activity
around which so much controversy swells?

The great mistake which so many Canadians have made in consider-
ing the political context of housing policy consists in the naive view
that once governments recognize a human need, they will move to
take action as promptly as possible. The fact is that what is meant by
“action” in the field of housing is a series of political and legislative
decisions to devote a portion of scarce economic resources to this
activity rather than to another. Sometimes this means diverting financial
resources (to the housing activity) from the social services, from the
health services, from the provision of educational facilities, and from
basic municipal protective services; sometimes it means additional capital
borrowing over and beyond the experience of previous years. It surely
means the creation of administrative resources within government to
handle the economic and technical questions which arise in the.
development of housing for persons and families of modest or low
income.

Political, Economic and Social Contexts 5

THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The provision of housing accommodation is a matter of substantial
economic significance in Canada. Between the early 1950s and the
late 1970s the total annual investment in residential construction rose
from about $2 billion to more than $11 billion.1¢ Although the demand
for new housing for purchase had not been strong in 1976 and
throughout the first half of 1977, the number of housing starts in 1976
was at a record high (exceeding 273,000 units).1* Unemployment in
Canada exceeded 7 per cent of the labour force in the late 1970s;
instability in the residential construction industry has greatly contri-
buted to such unemployment.

Although most Canadians realize that provision of housing is an
important economic activity within private industry as a whole, they
are not fully aware of all the economic ramifications of the house-
building industry and that all of the factors of production, land,
labour and materials are involved in the provision of housing.

Moreover, those industries which produce the furnishings new home
buyers often require (plumbing fixtures, appliances, furniture, carpets,
bedding, linens and so on) will be affected by the degree to which
the market for new housing is buoyant or otherwise. The policies of
governments and the decisions of private entrepreneurs with respect to
land use affect the supply of housing, the kind of housing produced
and the level of housing costs at any one time. The degree to which
residential housing is expanding has a profound effect upon employment
in a number of related industries which supply building. materials
(lumber, cement, bricks, copper piping, oil burners, furnaces and the
like). In short, the economic ramifications of the private and public
provision of housing accommodation are widespread.

Under these circumstances I am always amazed at the naiveté
displayed by many Canadians, including some politicians and social
scientists, with respect to the economic position of housing in their
analysis of housing programs and policies. Over the years [ can recall
the plaintive demands of citizens’ groups, of social scientists, of elected
and appointed officials and of voluntary organizations, that government
not “use” housing as a stimulus or a deterrent to economic activity.
Dennis and Fish have identified what they consider to be the first
deliberate attempt by the Government of Canada in 1957 to use
housing provision as an economic stimulant.??

The tragic aspect of this situation is the widely held belief that
government can exercise its overall economic, monetary and social
policies, without in any serious way affecting the provision of housing.
It is not possible for the Government of Canada to exert its influence
to vary interest rates or the money supply upward or downward without

6 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

affecting mortgage rates, and these in turn have a profound effect on
the capacity or willingness of Canadians to purchase new homes. In
the latter part of 1976 and into 1977, the rediscount rate of the Bank
of Canada was reduced on several occasions; soon thereafter rates on
first mortgages from most lending institutions dropped by a similar
percentage; in 1978 and 1979 the “bank rate” was increased ten times
and, invariably, mortgage rates rose correspondingly.

Critics of government housing policies have customarily not been
upset when rates were dropping but when it was apparently in the
economic interest of the nation to raise interest rates (and thus mort-
gage rates) there were pleas by the aforementioned critics, to the
federal government, to eliminate or ameliorate the influence of these
changed economic policies in the field of housing. This cannot be done
simply, although a number of assisted housing programs involving the
subsidization of interest rates can be and have been undertaken to
alleviate the impact of economic changes upon certain individuals or
families within various housing markets.

There is a further dimension to the economics of housing which is
more clearly understood than the interrelationships of monetary policy
and housing activity, specifically the direct and indirect expenditures
of government in housing provision. At the end of 1968 it was asserted
in a formal report to the federal cabinet that

a total of more than $12 billion in National Housing Act loans, grants
and subsidies has been extended to provide Canadians with more and
better housing in a suitable urban environment. It is by most standards
an impressive record.13

More than $8 billion was committed in direct federal expenditures and
CMHC loans between the end of 1968 to the end of 1978.

Canadians understand that loans are repaid and that direct expen-
ditures are a relatively minor part of the total. Subsidies are more
difficult to comprehend and have been a cause for concern by govern-
ments and resentment by the general public. Until 1973 the term
“subsidy” generally referred to the difference between the rent-paying
capacity of a tenant in public housing and the full economic cost of
providing the accommodation, amortized over fifty years. Such sub-
sidies were not substantial, in absolute current dollars, prior to the late
1960s. By the mid-1970s the annual dollar requirement in conventional
assisted housing had approached $500 million, at least half of which
was borne by the Government of Canada. At the same time, new
programs had been developed requiring subsidies to home purchasers
in the form of interest reduction loans and outright grants to purchasers
to maintain monthly shelter payments at 30 per cent or less of gross

* family income.

Political, Economic and Social Contexts 7

There was in the late 1970s renewed concern about both per unit
per month subsidy payments required by virtue of rapidly escalating
housing costs, and total subsidy payments on an annual basis. I
consider the subsidy question a serious policy constraint in Canadian
housing for the next two decades at least.

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT

The determination of a national society, or a smaller community
within it, to intervene in the housing market requires both implicit
and explicit social commitments and underlying frameworks ranging
from the philosophical to the quite specifically economic. Basically,
the provision of affordable housing, adequate in quantity (space) and
quality (physical and community, amenities), for every individual and
family, must be enunciated as a major social goal.

Canada, unlike a number of western countries, rather than formally
presenting the fundamental goals of its housing policies, has instead
relied on a statement of objectives associated with each new or altered
housing program. This important omission has been clearly expressed
by Wolman in his analysis of “housing as a social service”.

One of the less visible, but nonetheless important differences between
British and American housing policy ~ and one which itself greatly
helps to account for many of the other differences ~ is the view each
country holds with respect to the appropriate responsibility of govern-
ment in meeting the shelter needs of its citizens. The concept of
housing as a social service appears frequently in discussions of British
housing policy, while it is not a common frame of reference for debate
on American housing policy.15

The word “Canadian” may be substituted for the word “American” in
the quotation with entire justification. Nevertheless, the development
of Canadian housing legislation by the federal and provincial gov-
ernments, particularly since 1954, constitutes an undeniable social
commitment.

Once this commitment is affirmed, the social questions assume the
form of explicit socio-economic decisions. The major social question
may be phrased as follows: “Who are to be the direct beneficiaries of
publicly initiated housing policies and programs?” The obvious response
must be: “Those persons and families in the greatest need of adequate
housing.” But how is need to be measured and priorities to be
determined among those identified as “in need”? And how is such
identification of those “in need” to be made in the first instance?

The first of the most logical techniques developed to answer these
questions almost everywhere in the world consists of a careful observa-

8 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

tion and examination of the physical shelter and housing conditions
of those who apply as tenants or purchasers of the new or rehabilitated
housing to be provided. This assessment requires a staff of examiners
or interviewers who must be trained to observe and rate the extent of
physical deficiencies, to ask the proper questions of the residents and
to seek relevant answers. This is particularly important when the
impact of current living arrangements upon the physical and emotional
health of family members is a part of the rating process in determining
need.

The second technique in measurement of need and priorities among
applicants (who, it is assumed, will generally exceed the number of
available dwellings) is a determination of individual or family income
or both. Information can be provided by the applicant or other
members of the family, by the employer, if there is one, or by those
agencies, usually governmental, which provide or supplement the basic
income of the individual or family. The fundamental notion is, of
course, that those in the poorest shelter and with the lowest income
per household (sometimes considered per capita) should have the
highest priority in the allocation of publicly provided housing, But to
express this apparently fair and reasonable assumption without quali-
fication is to gloss over a variety of social and administrative problems
and issues.

What immediately comes to mind is the question of whether the
alleged “need” should be expressed through a process of self-identifica-
tion (application) or whether society should first identify those areas
of clearly undesirable or “bad” housing in the community, develop a
program to replace or rehabilitate such housing, if feasible, and allocate
the new accommodation to the previous residents. The latter is the
essence of the concepts of slum clearance and urban renewal. Those
displaced by the clearance and rebuilding operations would naturally
be the first to be rehoused. Such neat formulations soon run into the
blocks which appear when criteria other than prior residence are taken
into consideration. The most important of these is the income criterion.
The assumption in Canada and the United States in the first postwar
decade (1946-1955) that the residents of slum clearance or renewal
areas would be “quite poor” was not borne out in practice. Some
households were in poverty, some were not. Should all previous on-site
residents have equal priority for rehousing?

The abovementioned experience raised sharply the whole question
of the validity of the income criterion and also the question, “What is
to be considered total family income for the purpose of determining
eligibility and setting priorities for allocation of scarce accommoda-
tion?” Most governmental organizations determined eligibility by the
total annual income for both individuals and families or by marginal

Political, Economic and Social Contexts 9%

tax (percentage of income for rent). During the 1950s, the Central
Mortgage and Housing Corporation issued quarterly estimates of the
total family income for various communities (said to be the upper
limit of the lowest third of the family income distribution) beyond
which applications for publicly assisted housing could not be accepted
and current tenants would be encouraged to move out and seek
accommodation in the private market.

Beyond these over-arching questions there are many problems
implicit in the definition of family income. Most authorities in Canada
and the United States developed systems of rental payment whereby
rents were geared-to-income. Rents would increase as income increased
(sometimes to a maximum proportion of 25-30 per cent of gross
family income) and decrease as income decreased. Thus emerged the
so-called “rental scale”.

The first step in rent determination was thus income determination.
The latter began usually with a recording of the total income of the
head of the household, assumed to be the father of the family. But
among low-income families, as the postwar decades passed, the prin-
cipal income recipient was often the mother of the family - widowed,
separated or deserted — and families headed by a woman became
the norm among applicants for public housing. The question arose
as to whether the principal source of income — a public social assist-
ance payment — should be considered in toto for purposes of rent
determination.

Among intact families headed by a male the question of secondary
income recipients posed many difficulties. Should the part-time earnings
of wives (mothers) be included in family income and if so, how much
of their income? And what about the earnings of employed children,
ranging all the way from the pin money of the child’s newspaper
delivery route to the full-time incomes of older teen-aged or young
adult children who normally paid nominal amounts to parents for room
and board? If these earnings were not included, in whole or in part,
why not? It was not difficult to emphasize that one goal of publicly
assisted housing programs was to enable families to re-organize or
re-order their spending patterns, to save money if possible, and to
leave public housing for the private rental or purchase market. Strict
regulations governing income calculation might well inhibit attainment
of these socio-economic goals.

As difficult as these administrative and social decisions were, they
were overshadowed by the major questions of social objectives implicit
in a large-scale public housing program. As the effort to increase the
supply of publicly assisted housing units intensified throughout Canada
during 1965-1974, the matter of the form and shape of physical
structures on the one hand, and of the neighbourhood or community

10 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

on the other, came to exercise paramount influence. The quickest way
to acquire housing was to purchase buildings under construction by
private entrepreneurs seeking liquidity in their investments. Moreover,
rental units in high-rise multiple form offered hundreds of dwelling
units rather than dozens usually available in low-rise, low or medium
density developments.

Apartment buildings afforded housing described as bachelor accom-
modation and one- and two-bedroom apartments, for the most part.
The housing authorities were committed to the prevention of over-
crowding and thus could often not meet the needs of families with
more than two to four children. In any case, there was the emerging
question of the suitability of apartment dwellings for families with
children. In the late 1960s there was an increasing volume of literature
attributing disturbed family relationships and behavioural problems
among children to high-rise apartment living.1*

The question of “community” or “normalcy” within neighbourhoods
dominated by public housing projects was equally important. Within
some municipalities in Canada, school boards deplored the vastly
increased number of children from low-income publicly-housed families,
insisting that many children had fallen behind in the appropriate age~
grade progression and related to this fact was the frequence of problem
behaviour in classrooms.

This situation was merely one aspect of community. More important
was the fact that public housing accommodation was increasingly
populated by families dependent on one form or another of public
assistance payments, general welfare assistance, family benefits or
mothers’ allowances, old age pensions and disability allowances. More-
over, the fact that applications from single parent families reached
levels exceeding 50 per cent of all applications in many Ontario cities
by the mid-1970s promised no return to “normal” communities com-
posed of an appropriate mixture of self-supporting employed intact
families, dependent intact families and self-supporting and dependent
one-parent families. The notion of general normalcy in communities in
which significant proportations of socially assisted housing units are
located, cannot be stretched to encompass the notion of “villages of
the poor”.

A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO ANALYSIS

The complexities of housing policy analysis thus involve constitu-
tional, political, economic, social and administrative considerations. In
recent years a number of competent scholars and research organizations”
have attempted through analyses of the “housing problem” or the

Political, Economic and Social Contexts 11

“housing crisis” (to cite the two most common phrases of concern in
Canada) to devise housing policies they consider more appropriate in
the light of changing circumstances.

At the beginning of the 1970s, as the federal government was
contemplating the creation of a new ministry to be responsible for
housing and urban affairs, the minister responsible for housing, Robert
Andras, commissioned Harvey Lithwick, then Professor of Economics
at Carleton University, to undertake a comprehensive examination of
Canada’s urban situation, including the organization and administration
of its housing program. By 1972, under the direction of Dr. Lithwick,
six research monographs had been published as well as a major review
of the problems and prospects facing an urban Canada.17 The second
monograph in the research series was entitled “Housing in Canada”."*
There can be no question that under Dr. Lithwick’s direction the
empirical and theoretical framework essential to the development of a
Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, which was ultimately created in
1971,!® was well provided.

As these studies were in the process of publication and dissemination,
a major research project was commissioned by Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation under the direction of Michael Dennis, then a
member of the Faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School and Susan Fish,
then Director of the Bureau of Municipal Research in Toronto. Dennis
and Fish ultimately published their own report when the sponsoring
organization either refused or was dilatory in its consideration of
publication and dissemination. The approach in this major contribution
to the analysis of housing policies in Canada is implicit within its title,
Programs in Search of a Policy: Low Income Housing in Canada.?°
The major conclusions of the authors were that a great variety of
housing programs had been initiated in Canada since the Second World
War, that they had been ad hoc responses by the Government of
Canada with or without the participation of the provincial governments,
and that they failed to be based firmly on any clear policy direction by
the federal government or the federal and provincial governments acting
jointly.

In the view of one research organization, these major studies within
the field of housing in Canada failed to recognize fully the basic
characteristics of the housing sector. The most significant consideration
is the fact that housing performs several significant functions.

Housing performs at least four quite different functions in our society.
It is a consumer good, providing shelter; it is an investment good, the
only major investment of most families; it is an industrial sector,
providing jobs and incomes for many; and it is a social good, which
governments attempt to provide for all income classes.21

12 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

All of these several approaches to the analysis of Canadian housing
were important contributions to the study of the subject. Nevertheless,
the complex problems inherent within the provision of housing in
Canada continue and while we are undoubtedly one of the best housed
nations in the world, the questions raised by these analysts concerning
the inadequacies of housing provision for a substantial proportion of
our population remain unanswered. It is not suggested that I will
provide the answer but in the analysis which follows, I shall trace the
evolution of housing policies within Canada, not merely from the
vantage point of the federal government but from the point of view of
all three (or even four levels of government where regional governments
exist) particularly since the end of the Second World War. I cannot
accept the view that we have had housing programs to the exclusion
of housing policies; I cannot accept the view that governments have
failed the Canadian population seriously; I cannot accept the view
that we cannot do better. Perhaps my examination of the history will
provide some clues to the evolution of more adequate housing policies
and programs designed to implement them.

NOTES

1D. C. Masters, The Rise of Toronto, 1850-1890 (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1947) p. 127. An address by Miss Charity Cook, Tenth
Canadian Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Toronto,
October 1909) pp. 10-12. J. S. Woodsworth, My Neighbor (University of
Toronto Press and Oxford University Press, 1911, reprinted 1972).

2Bureau of Municipal Research, Toronto: Bulletin 2, “Do You Care How
the Other Fellow is Housed?”, March 13, 1914; Bulletin 7, “Is the Solution
of the Housing Problem a Civic Duty”, April 1, 1914. D. W. Holdsworth,
“House and Home in Vancouver: Images of West Coast Urbanism, 1886-
1929”, in G. Stelter and A. Artibise (Eds.) The Canadian City: Essays in
Urban History (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977 — Carleton University
Library).

3§. Spragge, “Early Housing Reform — A Confluence of Interests, 1900-
1920”, a paper delivered at the first Canadian Urban History Conference
(University of Guelph, May 1977, mimeo) p. 12.

4H. S. M. Carver, Houses for Canadians (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1948) pp. 25-28.

5D. V. Donnison, The Government of Housing (London: Penguin Books
Ltd., 1967) pp. 79-112.

8}. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1958) pp. 322-333.

TDominion Housing Act, 1935, 25-26 George V, Chap. 58.

Political, Economie and Social Contexts 13

8National Housing Act, 1938, 2 George VI, Chap. 49.

®The Research Committee of the League for Social Reconstruction,
Social Planning for Canada (Toronto: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., 1935),
pp. 3-39, 451-463.

1°Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statis-
tics, 1978 (Ottawa: CMHC, March 1979) Table 24, p. 21.

1Jbid., Table 1, p. 1. There were sharp reductions to 245,700 starts in
1977 and 227,600 in 1978.

12M. Dennis and S. Fish, Programs in Search of a Policy: Low Income
Housing in Canada (Toronto: Hakkert, 1972), p. 130.

18Canada, Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development
(Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1969) p. 6.

44Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statis-
tics, 1978 (Ottawa: CMHC, March 1979) Table 24, p. 21.

1H. L. Wolman, Housing and Housing Policy in the U.S. and the U.K.
(Lexington, Toronto and London: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath and
Company, 1975) p. 15.

16See M. Lipman, Social Effects of the Housing Environment, a back-
ground paper prepared for the Canadian Conference on Housing, October
1968, pp. 4-17; and H. N. Colburn, Health and Housing, similarly prepared,
pp. 33-34. These papers were collected and published under the title, The
Right to Housing (Montreal: Harvest House, 1969).

“Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Urban Canada: Problems
and Prospects, a report prepared by N. H. Lithwick for the Minister
Responsible for Housing, Government of Canada (Ottawa: CMHC,
December 1970) pp. 236.

181, B. Smith, “Housing in Canada,” Urban Canada: Problems and
Prospects, (Ottawa: CMHC, January 1971) research monograph 2, pp. 99.

19Dr. Lithwick became the first director of research for the new Ministry
of State and remained in that position for nearly two years.

20M. Dennis and S. Fish, op. cit.

*1R. Shaffner, “Housing Policy in Canada: Learning from Recent Prob-
lems” HRI Observations (Montreal: C. D. Howe Research Institute) No. 9,
August 1975, p. 2.

CHAPTER 2

Essential Elements of a Canadian
Housing Policy

INTRODUCTION

In recent Canadian history there has been much confusion about
housing policy. The most serious and the most frequent charge to be
levelled, particularly against the federal government, is that “there is
no national housing policy.” When the particular course of action
adopted and pursued by one or more levels of government is unsuc-
cessful in meeting the total problem under consideration, one suspects
that the pronouncer of the dictum “there is no housing policy”, is
simply finding another way of saying that many individual, family, or
group housing problems have not been solved satisfactorily either in
quantitative or qualitative terms.

It is nevertheless true that it is very difficult for the student of
housing affairs to decide when a particular government proposal, or
apparent course of action, really represents housing policy or is merely
a temporary palliative or pronouncement behind which stands no
particular government support and conviction. During the past thirty
years it has been alleged by many social scientists, politicians, and
other students of the problem that the most prevalent governmental
reaction to Canada’s housing dilemmas may fairly be described as
“housing by headline”. This is meant to imply that during this period
there have been far more pronouncements, newspaper articles, press

16 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

releases, and other indications of concern and potential action than
there have been specific governmental actions designed to meet our
housing needs. In this welter of charge and countercharge, of proposal
and counterproposal, of allegations of buck-passing from one level of
government to another, the tremendous progress in Canada’s housing
situation since 1938-1939 tends to become lost, or at best dimmed,
and the limits and scope of a housing policy become obscured.

The most important background fact in the Canadian housing
experience is that Canada is a federal state. In 1867 the authors of
our constitution determined that there would be a federal government
with certain specific functions and a second tier of provincial govern-
ments with certain other specific functions. Unlike the situation in the
United States, the residual powers were left with the federal govern-
men. In fact, the Government of Canada can legislate in any national
emergency “for the peace, order, and good government” of all
Canadians.’ But, it must be emphasized that in a federal state the
matter of housing policy is quite different from that in a unitary state
like the United Kingdom. In Canada the first essential must be to
determine where the constitutional responsibility lies, and once that
legal interpretation is made clear and is accepted by the central govern-
ment and the governments of the provinces, then, and only then, can
the concept of policy begin to emerge. There can be no policy other-
wise, unless what passes for policy is merely a course of action
contemplated by one level of government in default of the rightful
assumption of responsibility by another.

In this country the constitutional responsibility for the provision of
housing to individuals and families has been assigned, by judicial inter-
pretation, to the provinces under Section 92 of the British North
America Act.2 The assignment does not necessarily result in the
acceptance of responsibility by these governments. Therefore, when
some persons have insisted in recent years that Canadian housing
policy has changed drastically by virtue of the assumption of respon-
sibility by the governments of the provinces, such an assertion must
be strongly challenged. Housing policy has not changed, if we can,
indeed, admit that such policy existed. What has changed has been
the adoption and pursuit of a course of action by a particular level of
government (provincial) which, during the previous thirty years, had
participated in this endeavour only to a very limited extent.

This kind of analysis emphasizes that there are essentials in the
determination of a Canadian housing policy, and these essentials must
be carefully examined and explained before we can proceed to under-
stand the response to the national housing problem. The major essen-
tials in Canadian housing policy are legislation, financial resources,

Essential Elements of a Canadian Housing Policy 17

responsibility for initiating action, and appropriate administration
arrangements.

LEGISLATION

The determination of a particular course of action with respect to
the alleviation of some aspect of the overall housing problem cannot
take the form merely of a pronouncement by one or more levels of
government that action will be taken. Nor is it sufficient to suggest
that the government in question favours a particular approach or a
particular view of the problem. Housing policy, as one definition
suggests, requires a course of action adopted and pursued by a govern-
ment, and the terms “adoption” and “pursuit” require, at the very
least, the passage of legislation that enunciates specifically what the
particular government is prepared to do about the problem. In this
respect it might be argued that there has been a national housing
policy in Canada since at least 1935, when the Dominion Housing Act
was passed,? Since that time there have been three major National
Housing Acts passed in 1938, 1944 and 1954; and in 1964 and 1973 a
further series of major amendments which transformed the legislation*

The essence of federal legislation in housing is not very different
from that of other federal legislation concerned with matters of national
interest in some field of economic and social affairs. In a federal
country, a major piece of legislation must afford an opportunity for
the governments of the provinces, if they have the constitutional
responsibility, to participate actively in the implementation of the
particular course of action planned by the central government. These
incentives may be as simple as the provision of financial resources,
provided the governments of the provinces pass “enabling legislation”
permitting them to sign agreements with the federal government on
the matter in question. It is more usual, however, for the federal
government to pass legislation which enunciates the essence of the
central government’s view of the problem and the nature of the potential
solutions required to solve it. In addition, federal legislation customarily
implies that certain standards of implementation and administration
must be met if the provincial governments are to qualify for assistance
— technical, administrative, accounting, financial — to be provided by
the central government.

In a country like Canada, a major piece of federal legislation must
provide the opportunity for every region to participate in the contem-
plated program. It should be possible for each region to develop,
within appropriate limits, its own approach to the solution of the

18 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

housing problem, an approach consistent with its history and traditions,
its tastes and preferences, and its view of its own special needs.

It is conceivable that a course of action may be enunciated by
government without the passage of specific legislation and that this
declaration may be the expression of governmental policy. It is incon-
ceivable, however, that policy can be implemented without the passage
of legislation which makes it possible to pursue the prescribed action.
Within the several National Housing Acts passed in Canada since
1938 it is possible to discern the philosophy underlying government
housing policy. The legislation and the regulations written for such
legislation really prescribe the beneficiaries for whom governmental
action is intended and the conditions under which potential beneficiaries
may, in fact, receive the support or assistance provided by the legis-
lation. To this extent, legislation is not merely the legal execution of
constitutional responsibility but can be conceived as both the social
and economic dimensions of housing policy at the particular level of
government responsible for its passage.

FINANCIAL RESOURCES

It is insufficient to pass laws without the provision of financial
resources to implement the policies developed and proclaimed by the
legislation. Moreover, the actual provision of government appropriations
may be an indication of the intensity with which policy is meant to be
implemented. Legislation is sometimes passed under pressure from
citizens’ groups, from business or trade associations, even from the
elected representatives of other levels of government; but it may be
the intention of the body which passes the legislation that it shall be
merely a token acknowledgement of the need for governmental action.

In Canada, unlike the United States, the passage of legislation is
usually accompanied by some specific indication of the amount of
money intended to achieve the objectives of the legislation. For
example, in both Part I (Housing for Home Owners) and Part IT
(Section 22 ~ later Part IH, Section 23) of the National Housing Act
of 1944, specific amounts of money, namely, $300,000,000 (1949)
and $250,000,000 (1953), were specified as available for these parti-
cular portions, As time passed, these amounts were amended and when
the National Housing Act of 1954 was passed, the amounts available
were altered in response to changing legislation and increased demand.
Therefore, there is no need in Canada for additional pressure to be
brought, once the legislation is passed, to ensure that the appropriation
is voted. Rather, the more serious concern is to ensure that the monies
available and specified within the legislation are, in fact, spent. This

Essential Elements of a Canadian Housing Policy 19 :

assurance very often requires intense pressure upon one level of
government to convince its officials and, indeed, to force them to
develop programs for which the funds are apparently available through
a higher level of government.

It would appear that the enunciation of a course of action by
government has been accompanied by a specific appropriation of funds
for the various programs possible within the new laws. This is not to
suggest, however, that the amounts of money provided have been
sufficient. In that aspect of Canadian federal housing legislation which
is intended to encourage the assumption of home ownership through
the provision of more generous mortgage terms than are available in
the open market, governmental policy shifted during the post-war
period from direct intervention (the provision of a portion of the
mortgage loans themselves) to more indirect intervention (the guar-
anteed repayment of such loans if potential owners should default).
As simple as this may seem, housing policy in Canada has been more
evident in the field of mortgage financing of home ownership than in
any other respect.

In the years following the passage of the National Housing Act of
1944 and throughout most of the ensuing decade, Part I of the Act
provided that the Government of Canada would provide 25 per cent
of the capital amount of an approved NHA mortgage loan at relatively
low interest, namely, 3 per cent. The effect of this specific action has
had so many important ramifications in our post-war housing exper-
ience that even today the full impact of the experience of the first
post-war decade can scarcely be measured fully. Clearly, it was the
policy of the central government to encourage the assumption of home
ownership, in new construction only, through a programme which
resulted in the lowest first-mortgage interest rates in our history. This
was formed by not one but two forms of subsidy: direct lending of
funds provided by the general taxpayer to several hundreds of thousands
of privileged families, and the provision of such funds at an artificially
reduced rate of interest.

Although it occupied only one short part of the federal legislation,
a-consequence of this set of policies was clearly the expansion of vast
suburban areas adjacent to every medium-sized and large urban centre.
The problems that have ensued, both for the governments and residents
of suburban areas and the governments and residents of central cities
which did not directly benefit from this encouragement to home owner-
ship, are immeasurable. An adequate assessment of the pros and cons
of this aspect of policy has not been published, and one must refrain
from ascribing all forms of urban distress and all negative aspects of
urban living to one specific set of policies. On the other hand, it is not
sufficient for those who have defended such policies to argue that, in

20 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

the long run, a vast growth of urban population resulted in an expan-
sion of metropolitan economic development inconceivable in the years
immediately after the end of World War Two. It can surely be argued
that this is a case where housing policy in effect took over the respon-
sibility of urban planning (in this case suburban planning) which has
been the source of so much distress to social, economic and planning
analysts.

At this point in the argument, the key aspect of the situation in the
first postwar decade is that the financial resources were, indeed, made
available. As total Canadian population expanded and urbanization
progressed rapidly, it became apparent early in the 1950s that the
policy of stimulating home ownership — in itself the advancement of a
group of values which represented the collective judgment of elected
and appointed officials — could no longer be supported with available
governmental revenues. In re-writing the National Housing Act in
1953-1954, the government’s decision to discontinue direct participation
in mortgage lending at a subsidized rate of interest was no surprise to
students of the subject at that time. The new legislation permitted the
chartered banks to enter the mortgage field in so far as National
Housing Act operations were concerned. In fact, the banks were
formally advised that they must share in the provision of required
financial resources. In order to enable a conservative banking system
to participate in the pursuit of a course of action prescribed by govern-
ment, a system of mortgage loan guarantees was instituted and, as is
often the case, the ultimate consumer (in this case the home buyer)
would provide the insurance premiums, in the form of a fee amounting
to 2 per cent of the purchase price.

APPROPRIATE INITIATIVES IN THE FIELD OF HOUSING

The pursuit of a course of action (the implementation of policy)
must begin somewhere. A statement of housing policy backed up by
legislative and financial guarantees is by no means equivalent to the
implementation of a policy unless someone, somewhere, takes the
initiative. It has been stated many times that housing legislation in
Canada is as good as that existing in any other western nation. There
is no reason to challenge this contention because such an argument
would be fruitless. The real test of housing policy is its translation into
the provision of adequate physical and social space occupied by indi-
viduals or families who are in need of such accommodation. The failure
of such housing policy, when and if it could be judged that a particular
course of action had failed, is more properly attributed to lack of
initiative than to lack of resources.

Essential Elements of a Canadian Housing Policy 24

It was therefore fitting that in discussing the proposed 1949 amend-
ments to the National Housing Act, which were to introduce Canada
for the first time to the field of public housing for low-income families,
the then minister of Resources and Development, Robert H. Winters,
should stress that the new legislation could only be implemented by
virtue of local initiatives. The federal minister made it perfectly clear
that those forms of government which were allegedly closest to the
tangible needs of people must take steps to meet those needs. The
relationships emphasized by federal officials were, of course, federal-
provincial relations.

Despite the triteness of the phrase, the municipalities are in fact the
creatures of the provincial governments. Barring the extraordinary
powers available during periods of war-time emergency, the federal
government has no constitutional right to negotiate directly with local
government. It was made clear, therefore, when Section 35 was before
Parliament in November 1944,> that the federal-provincial agreements
envisaged in this amendment to the Act depended upon local initiative.
The amount of financial responsibility placed upon local governments
was a matter for the provincial governments, after they chose to
participate in the newly conceived federal-provincial partnership. Some
provinces (Alberta, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island) did not choose
to participate for nearly fifteen years.

Canada’s housing history during the 1950s, as far as direct public
intervention is concerned, can be described in terms of the existence
or non-existence of local initiatives pressing for public participation in
the available legislation and financial programs. Local initiative, subject
to many and varied interpretations, is sometimes regarded as a purely
voluntary effort on the part of private citizens and organizations directed
towards influencing one or more levels of government to take appro-
priate action. This conception of local initiative is far too narrow. For
example, in Halifax, where a substantial public housing program was
mounted during the 1950s, the most important initiators were the
mayor and the elected councillors of the city (these officials were
advised by a competent city manager).

Perhaps this form of local government provides a structure in which
the city manager, convinced of the need for urban renewal and an
appropriate housing program, can draw more clearly to the attention
of elected officials the needs of the community. Initiation in Toronto,
however, has been less evident among elected and appointed officials
but has, to a substantial degree, been the product of pressure mounted
by voluntary community organizations such as: the Citizens Housing
and Planning Association, from 1944 to 1949; the Metropolitan
Toronto Branch of the Community Planning Association of Canada,
from 1948 to the present; the Association of Women Electors; and

22 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

other groups. In the late 1970s, with the creation of the City of Toronto
Non-Profit Housing Corporation (City Home), this lack of “official”
initiative was no longer a reality.

Each of these experiences (Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver,* et al)
can be justifiably described as local initiatives. The legislative arrange-
ments require that the local community has a clear recognition of
need and a clear indication of the desire for the public assumption
of responsibility to provide housing accommodation for low-income
groups. This would seem to be an appropriate line of initiatives ~ a
line running from the local manifestation of human need to those levels
of government where the legislative and financial resources have been
provided. The alternative approach, a line of action which would run
from governmental bodies down towards the neighbourhood or the
local community, is surely a paternalistic approach and moreover, one
that could fail to recognize the differential quality of housing require-
ments from community to community and from region to region.

It must be recognized, of course, that what is called local initiative,
whether citizen-based or council-based, can only flourish under certain
favourable conditions. In a situation where a provincial government
has decided, for whatever reason, that it does not consider housing to
be of relatively high priority among ail of its competing responsibilities,
the atmosphere in which local initiative can develop is most restricted.
In Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia it was obvious that there
was at least some recognition of the potentialities of the federal-
provincial partnership. Although the line from local initiative to pro-
vincial acceptance of need, to the development of a federal-provincial
agreement with respect to the construction of “housing projects for sale
or for rent” in any Ontario community’? was not smooth and uninter-
rupted, the general climate was favourable. In general it can be argued
that this was also the case in Newfoundland, and to some extent in
New Brunswick. In certain other provinces such as Alberta, Manitoba,
and especially Quebec, the situation was quite different.

In certain provinces the required enabling legislation following the
1949 amendments, was not even enacted. In other provinces where
enabling legislation was passed, unusually difficult financial requirements
were prescribed, which effectively curtailed the nurturing of local
initiatives in the development of housing programs. In those provinces
where all or most of the 25 per cent provincial share of capital require-
ments and operating subsidies was passed on to the local municipality,
such arrangements could hardly be regarded as “the pursuit of a
course of action.” A detailed assessment of the experience in the 1950s
from province to province is not available, but it can be stated fairly:
that whatever progress occurred, in both physical and social terms,
was very closely related to the climate in which voluntary and public

Essential Elements of a Canadian Housing Policy 23

initiatives at the local community level were fostered in some provinces
or hampered to the point of discouragement in others.

EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

Even where it can be assumed that all of the previously considered
essentials of a national housing policy — legislation, financial resources,
local initiative — were present and flowed smoothly towards the an-
nounced objectives, there was always the danger of long and frustrating
delays and even the abandonment of specific programs because of
the Jack of administrative arrangements, both in the structural and
personnel sense.

In the early years after World War Two, most provinces were ill-
equipped to deal with the problems of urbanization which included
housing, community planning, urban renewal, and the like. Most
provinces did not have appropriate community planning legislation;
most did not have appropriate legislation with respect to housing
development; and, most did not have any clearly defined locus of
responsibility within the provincial departmental structure where new
programs could be lodged. In Ontario the entire field was the respon-
sibility of two branches of the then Department of Planning and
Development, first created in 1946. The Housing Branch was respon-
sible for the administration of provincial legislation, such as the Housing
Development Act of 1948,§ and was soon assigned the role of provincial
agent in the emerging federal-provincial partnership after 1949. The
responsibilities of local government in the field of community planning
were administered through the Community Planning Branch of the
same department. Both of these branches were relatively new, modestly
staffed and modestly financed; they were groping their way to an
understanding and appreciation of the problems for which they were
responsible, and were trying to devise administrative techniques for
meeting them. Most other Canadian provinces were by no means as
well equipped as Ontario to deal with the rapid expansion of urban
areas after 1945.

The development of effective administrative arrangements cannot be
conceived merely as a problem of governmental administration in the
sense of allocation of responsibilities on organizational charts. There
has been naive assumption on the part of the protagonists of public
intervention, as well as by certain government officials, that the admin-
istration of housing programs is fairly straightforward. The fact is that
in the first decade following the end of the Second World War there
were very few people in Canada who had any experience in the
administration of public housing programs; in the general field of

26 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

3Dominion Housing Act, 1935, 25-26, George V, c. 58.

4National Housing Act, 8 George VI, 1944-45, c. 46, R.S.C. 1952, c. 188.
An Act to Promote the Construction of new Houses, the Repair and
Modernization of existing Houses, the Improvement of Housing and Living
Conditions, and the Expansion of Employment in the Postwar Period.

513 George VI, c. 30. An Act to Amend the National Housing Act 1944
(assented to 10th December, 1949) S. 35.

®6The Vancouver Housing Association, founded before the Second World
War, was perhaps the strongest and certainly the most durable citizens’
housing organization in Canada.

72-3 Elizabeth II, c. 23, National Housing Act 1954. An Act to Promote
the Construction of new Houses, the Repair and Modernization of existing
Houses, and the Improvement of Housing and Living Conditions, S$. 36(1).

8Housing Development Act, Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1950, c. 174,
Sec, 13(1) and 14.

®*The Ontario Housing Corporation Act 1964, R.S.O., 1970, c. 317,
8. 3(4).

Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez (New York: Random House,
1961) pp. xi-xxxi and 1-14.

14John R. Seeley, “The Slum: Its Nature, Use and Users,” Journal of the
American Institute of Planners, xxv, 1959.

12An Institute of Housing Management, with members drawn from both
public and private housing management organizations, was created in
Ontario in the mid-1970s and held its first annual meeting in November
1976.

CHAPTER 3

Housing Policy in Canada 1940-1968

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Canadian public housing policies, in any coherent sense of the word,
emerged as a consequence of the depressed economic activity of the
late 1930s and the onset of the Second World War. (The official
reaction to the disaster in Halifax harbour during World War One
must be seen as a fortuitous incident.) There is, of course, some
difference of opinion concerning the most appropriate date from which
to build an analysis. The year 1929 is a favourite choice of many
writers, for obvious reasons. In my view, however, the year 1941 is
the date from which most of the mid-twentieth century programs of
Canada and the United States can be appropriately measured. As the
war effort accelerated Canada approached full employment. In the fall
of 194] prices of all goods and services, including rentals of housing
accommodation, had advanced to the point where the federal govern-
ment felt it necessary to impose controls under its war-time emergency
legislation — controls over prices, wages, rents, and the allocation of
materials.

By 1941 the federal government had also taken several significant
steps which heralded the assumption of governmental responsibility in
the housing field. Although the first National Housing Act had been
passed in 1938, the opportunities for homebuilding were cut off by
the onset of the Second World War. In 1941 a Crown corporation,

28 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Wartime Housing Limited, was created by Order-in-Council to under-
take the task of providing housing urgently required in many urban
centres to accommodate workers attracted by governmental exhortation
to work in wartime industries. Wartime Housing Limited can be seen
now as a rudimentary federal housing agency, one of whose major
tasks was direct negotiation with the elected and appointed officials of
municipal governments. These negotiations produced a total of 45,930
dwelling units with an investment of $253,689,000 during the next
nine years.1 Nearly forty years later, most of the housing developed
by this corporation remains in use in or adjacent to our cities.

Whatever its strengths and deficiencies, rent control as a facet of
housing policy did represent an important federal intervention not
previously experienced in the Canadian housing market. Its main
significance was a recognition that the demand for scarce housing
accommodation would continue to exceed the available supply during
the war and probably thereafter. All the evidence in other countries
pointed to the depressing effect that rent control would have upon the
possible expansion of the supply of housing, but during the war the
probability of any real expansion in the housing stock seemed quite
remote. Rent control did continue into the post-war years and in some
municipalities was retained, in whole or in part, until the late 1940s.

The Government of Canada passed the second National Housing
Act in 1944, a much expanded and relatively comprehensive piece of
legislation in contrast with the legislation of the immediate pre-war
period. In retrospect, the Act appears like a declaration of faith in
the nation’s future in which housing policies would play a large role
in post-war readjustment. In fact, the legislation did follow a major
report of a special committee on post-war reconstruction known, after
Professor Clifford Curtis of Queen’s University, its chairman, as the
Curtis Committee.’ The Curtis Report, published in 1944, called for a
recognition of the role of government, primarily that of the federal
government, in the housing field, particularly with respect to the
provision of housing for low-income families.

This report, which followed Canada’s charter for post-war social
security (the Marsh Report of 1943),* was a milestone in the enuncia-
tion of social responsibility by government. It must be reiterated that
in the early months of 1944 the war was far from won, and it seems
remarkable that the Parliament of Canada would enact legislation
which, on the face of it, might appear premature. The very preamble
of the National Housing Act of 1944, however, pinpoints the rationale
for the legislation. The Act is described as “An Act to Promote the
Construction of New Houses, the Repair and Modernization of Existing
Houses, the Improvement of Housing and Living Conditions, and the
Expansion of Employment in the Postwar Period”. The emphasis on

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 29

the expansion of employment in the post-war period makes it clear
that the fundamental intention of the legislation was more economic —
in terms of the avoidance of a post-war depression akin to that of
1919-21 — than a social concern with the well-being of all Canadians
in terms of their housing requirements.

In the spring of 1945 the final link in this chain of future govern-
mental organization for housing development was forged with the
passage of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act.* This
act created a federal housing agency in the form of a wholly-owned
Crown corporation which was to administer the National Housing Act
and thus the housing policy and program of the Government of Canada.
The federal machinery for post-war housing expansion was complete.

Within the next five or six years Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation was to absorb or supersede all of the lesser agencies
created during the wartime emergency, including Wartime Housing
Limited.® The new agency, headed by a president and a vice-president
and supported by a board of directors appointed by the Government
of Canada, had all the attributes of a well-run business corporation
and was designed to hide the potential iron fist of governmental inter-
vention with a velvet glove of respectability or even financial profit.
On this latter score the corporation has never disappointed the financial
community.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

Several important factors combined during the six years following
the end of the war to make it possible for a strong federal role to
emerge. The first of these was associated with the creation of a Crown
corporation (CMHC) to administer the National Housing Act. Equally
significant were the emergency powers granted to the Government of
Canada in wartime and continued in substantial measure throughout
the early post-war years. A shortage of consumer durable goods, build-
ing materials, steel, rubber, petroleum and other products vital to the
growth of the national economy made it essential to continue certain
wartime emergency powers and specific intergovernmental agencies.*
In the early 1940s, Wartime Housing Limited negotiated directly with
many municipalities and a pattern of relationships was established
which continued, almost without question, during the early post-war
years.

As the housing industry developed momentum by the second half
of 1946, and the incomes and preferences of families began to reflect
a higher level of expectations, Wartime Housing Limited was taken
over by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and a new pro-

30 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

gram was developed to take effect during the years 1947-1949, The
intention of this new program, entitled Veterans’ Rental Housing,’ was
to develop 10,000 dwelling units per annum of a more durable quality
than that provided by Wartime Housing Limited (from an exterior
point of view the main difference was the substitution of aluminum
siding for frame construction, and full basements were deliberately
provided). A serious attempt was made to provide permanent housing
and once more, the federal government negotiated more or less directly
with the municipalities concerned with little or no apparent objection
from the respective provincial governments.

A third factor of considerable importance in the expansion of the
federal role in the early post-war years was the obvious weakness of
the provincial governments in these new fields of urban development.
It has already been pointed out that the governments of the provinces
were by no means prepared to assume their constitutional responsi-
bilities in those areas of growth and development comprised by the
term “urbanization”. This must explain in part the lack of interference
by provincial officials, elected and appointed, in the major federal-
municipal housing programs of the 1940s. Moreover, these programs
appeared to be the only way in which housing accommodation could
be provided in Canada at that stage of political and economic develop-
ment. Not only were the provincial governments unprepared, in the
political and administrative sense, to play much of a role in housing
policy, but their financial resources were quite inadequate to meet the
new challenges they were forced to face within two or three years after
the war.

Finally, the federal role was fostered by outright and fairly strong
hostility to public housing programs, a hostility far more evident within
the councils of local government and the legislatures of provincial
governments than anywhere else in Canada. At the federal level, there
was, by the late 1940s, at least a decade of major housing legislation,
intervention in the housing market, direct negotiation with local govern-
ments for the construction of many thousands of dwellings, experience
with certain social and community programs provided within Wartime
Housing developments, and the operation of a substantial mortgage
lending program supported out of tax revenues. The Marsh Report
and the Curtis Report were further influences at the federal level that
helped to weaken whatever antagonism existed towards public inter-
vention in the nation’s economy to achieve social goals through social
service programs. There was never in Ottawa the strong anti-public
housing lobbies which were evident in Washington from 1933 onwards.

In the Canadian cities and in the provincial legislatures, however,
the situation was by no means so favourable. In many towns and cities
there had been serious suffering by many thousands of families and

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 31

individuals during the 1930s and not infrequent criticism of the manner
in which financial assistance and work-relief programs had been
handled. There was much dissatisfaction on the part of the unemployed
and the needy as well as the staff members of the social and health
services who had tried, under the most adverse circumstances, to help
these people with the support of appropriate federal and provincial
welfare legislation, At the same time, the four-fifths of the labour
force who remained employed during those disastrous years found it
difficult to accept the pleas of the disadvantaged. Rather, they were
critical of what they considered to be wasteful measures of assistance
to many persons whom they considered to be lazy and indolent,

Such attitudes towards the poor expressed themselves as opposition
to the developing pressure for slum clearance and public housing
programs during the last two years of the war and in the early post-
war period. It was somewhat of a surprise to many people that the
ratepayers of Toronto should endorse an estimated expenditure of
nearly $6,000,000 on January Ist, 1947, for the Regent Park
North low-income housing project.’ Despite the favourable vote, there
was fairly strong opposition to the assumption of responsibility by the
City Council of Toronto in the absence of supporting provincial legis-
lation and financial assistance. In other parts of Canada the situation
was much the same. Although the opposition to public housing was
never as vociferous, hard-hitting and vicious as it was in many urban
areas in the United States, it nevertheless existed and discouraged local
initiative, not only in the late 1940s but throughout the 1950s even
after the passage of enabling federal legislation.®

In the two years following the war, then, intergovernmental relations
in the field of housing were quite perfunctory. There was a clear,
evident and strong federal role and assumption of responsibility
enunciated in legislation and in administrative arrangements designed
and enforced through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
There was a minor, weak, much less evident provincial role, even after
the passage of Section 35 of the National Housing Act in November
1949, which depended on similar “enabling legislation” being passed
in the provinces. Some provinces quickly took advantage of the new
opportunities and developed appropriate machinery. Others did not
and for some years operated under legislation and administrative
arrangements which were at best makeshift or stunted in their growth
and development.

At the local level there was confusion and consternation at the
requirement that clear and definite local initiative must precede the
utilization of the federal-provincial partnership within specific com-
munities. The major cities and towns faced the same difficulties as the
governments of the provinces, but, in addition, suffered from a series

32 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

of disadvantages which they were less well prepared to overcome than
their respective provincial hosts. At the local level there was opposition
to public activity in the housing market, whether it be called slum
clearance, urban redevelopment, public housing, or urban renewal. The
residents of most neighbourhoods that were judged to be blighted or
seriously deteriorating fought strongly against the expropriation and
clearance of their homes, neighbourhood stores, and social and recrea-
tional facilities. They bitterly denounced official and press statements
that they lived in a slum or a blighted area. At the same time, the
residents of other neighbourhoods, both in the central city and the
newly developing suburban areas, strongly opposed the location of
public housing projects in their midst. They argued that they would
be taxed not only in general but specifically for the welfare and
educational requirements of downtown slum dwellers who had been
foisted upon them for the general betterment of some other municipal
organization.

In addition to this discontent and opposition from within, local
governments faced very serious financial problems from the late 1940s
through the late 1960s, and they continue to face significant financial
dilemmas. Under the terms of the federal-provincial housing partner-
ship, a municipality was required to bring “city services” (usually
water and sewage facilities, street lighting and educational facilities)
to the boundaries of a new public housing project and, in the case of
schools, often within the large project site itself. These costs were
burdensome enough to many municipalities but since in many provinces
the local government was required to pay from 7% per cent (Ontario)
to, at most, 25 per cent of project costs (Alberta, Manitoba, and
Nova Scotia) they were not the whole picture. During the 1950s,
in return for these expenditures on capital and a similar share of
operating deficits (rental subsidies) local governments might expect in
lieu of taxes a payment which, they argued, was woefully short of
meeting the real costs of local participation in an intergovernmental
partnership.

Although it is true that despite these obstacles much progress was
evident by the mid-1950s in Saint John’s, Halifax, Toronto, Hamilton,
Windsor and Vancouver — this list represents merely a handful of
urban centres — in the great majority of municipalities little or no
progress was evident before the mid-1960s.

In the light of the foregoing, it might be argued that it would be
easy to identify a series of practical steps which could be described as
“federal housing policies”, “provincial housing policies”, and “municipal
housing policies”. Unfortunately such an enterprise would be extremely
difficult and unrewarding because none of the various governments in
Canada ever really came forward with a clear statement of their goals

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 33

and courses of action, or programs designed to attain given objectives
over some period of years. There was no clear statement of what might
be termed “federal housing policy’, but a series of statements and
pronouncements each year with respect to the overall housing situation
and, in particular, with respect to the total number of dwelling units
likely to be constructed, under construction, and completed during
that year. Under the circumstances, the analyst can do no better than
infer the most important elements of national housing policy from the
enactment or amendment of legislation, and the encouragement or
discouragement of various aspects of the total national housing program.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FEDERAL ROLE

Late in 1949, very soon after enactment of the federal-provincial
partnership legislation, it became entirely clear that the federal
government, through its agency, Central Mortgage and Housing Cor-
poration, intended to play a strong and controlling role in the develop-
ment of publicly-provided housing accommodation initiated anywhere
in Canada, as seemed to befit its senior role in the provision of capital
and operating subsidies. As the 1950s opened, a number of munici-
palities moved forward in their role as initiators of public housing
programs. Evidence that the process of federal-provincial-municipal
negotiation towards the creation of public housing would be a long
and tedious affair, in which the dominant roles would be played by
officials of the federal agency, began to accumulate. In an address to
the Committee on Housing of the City of Kingston, Ontario, in 1954,
I predicted that if the council of that city were to agree at that very
moment to proceed with a request for the development of a substantial
housing project intended to replace a deteriorated shack town which
had recently become the responsibility of the city through annexation
of part of an adjacent municipality, it would take five years before the
assembled councillors would see a family occupy a dwelling unit. This
prediction was borne out almost to the very letter, and is indicative
of the length of time required to complete housing projects which
accounts for much of the failure in Canadian public housing in the
1950s.

The federal role was based upon a clear and commendable objective
of excellence for Canada’s public housing program. By that time we
had had the good fortune to observe nearly a half-century of British
experience and more than a decade of American experience. Wherever
a Canadian official might travel in these two countries, there were
evident errors of omission and commission that it would be essential

34 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

to avoid. A desire for excellence impelled the officials of Central
Mortgage and Housing Corporation to develop a set of administrative
procedures in which a local initiative might very soon bog down
completely. It became an interesting exercise to list the number of
steps and approvals through which a public housing project had to
pass from the initial proposal at the local level to actual construction
and occupation of the project by low-income families. The number of
steps listed by the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority in 1961-
1962, from local to provincial to federal to provincial to local ap-
provals, back and forth a number of times, exceeded fifty. Under these
conditions it was indeed remarkable that any public housing accom-
modation was built at all.

In retrospect, the main difficulty appears to have been the desire of
highly trained and specialized officials of the federal agency to achieve
excellence in the Canadian public housing program. This is by no
means an undesirable objective, nor one to be discounted. The fact
was, however, that excellence could only be obtained at the expense
of quantity. Although this was not the only reason for Canada’s modest
quantitative attainment in public housing, it was an important con-
sideration. The federal agency insisted on planning every step of the
way, from the original municipal-provincial request to the ultimate
appointment of a local housing authority to administer and manage
the completed dwellings. The Architectural Division of Central Mort-
gage and Housing Corporation produced plans in the finest detail for
such huge public housing projects in Canada as Lawrence Heights and
Warden Woods in Toronto, Skeena Terrace and MacLean Park in
Vancouver, Mulgrave Park in Halifax, and Jeanne Mance in Montreal.
The results of the division’s activity were noteworthy. Public housing
projects were praised by architectural bodies, by visitors from other
countries, and by local officials. Such praise and various architectural
awards were won at the expense of a mass attack on the need for
housing accommodation for the most disadvantaged individuals and
families in Canadian urban centres.

Perhaps the techniques of the 1950s were fully justified on two
counts: firstly, the absence of any appropriate provincial and local
machinery to plan and design public housing programs or to implement
such programs through the letting of contracts and the supervision of
construction; and secondly, because the federal government was in fact
paying the lion’s share of the cost of such provision. It is clear that
the first deficiency was in process of amelioration as the provinces
attempted, in the late 1960s, to develop appropriate and adequate
machinery through the device of the provincial housing corporation.
At the same time, the federal government continued to put up a far
gteater percentage (90 per cent) of the required capital without any

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 35

suggestion that it must seriously control the process of housing develop-
ment because of this financial contribution.

In light of the substantial and powerful federal role in public housing,
it might be thought that the Government of Canada was strongly in
favour of a vast program of publicly provided housing for the lowest
third of individuals and families in the national income distribution.
As indicated previously, one can only infer the essentials of national
housing policy, but it is safe to argue that the federal public housing
policy was not consistent with the scope of the federal public housing
role.

The best conclusion we can arrive at concerning national housing
policy from 1945 through 1964 is that the Government of Canada
was strongly in favour of the attainment of home ownership by every
family. This goal was enunciated from time to time in Parliament and
in the speeches of federal ministers, particularly those responsible for
the operation of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, More~-
over, the government and the officials of the corporation devoted
much of their formal speechmaking and laudatory pronouncements to
the encouragement of the house-building industry in its efforts to
provide hundreds of thousands. of homes for sale during the years
1946-1959. Every effort was made to provide adequate supplies of
mortgage money, to manipulate the interest rate, and to set forth
appropriate terms to encourage individual home ownership. Not only —
was mortgage money made available through the National Housing Act
at rates lower than those prevailing in the money markets, but down-
payments were successively reduced as loan amounts were increased.
The period of amortization increased from fifteen years in 1946 to
twenty, then twenty-five, and then to its present length of 35 years or
more to enable lower-income families to acquire a home of their own.
If anything, this was the heart of our housing policy during the past
thirty years,

In the implementation of this course of action, Canada was trans-
formed from a nation of tenants to a nation of homeowners, with the
exception of Quebec. This was a fundamental revolution in our living
patterns and a tremendous stimulus to the development of our national
economy. Most of our population growth between 1951 and 1961 was
located in old or new municipalities which developed on the fringes of
existing towns and cities. During the decade in question population
increased by 30.2 per cent, but in 17 metropolitan census areas it
increased by more than 54 per cent. The population of the central city,
as in the case of Toronto, declined, but the adjacent suburban areas
increased prodigiously as houses became available.

The house-building industry came to represent a sizeable part of
Canada’s annual capital investment, absorbing 2 billion dollars per

36 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

annum by 1965. Fluctuations in this industry affected, or were affected
by, national economic and monetary policies. At least half-a-million
jobs were directly involved with, and two or three times as many were
dependent upon, the house-building industry, an industry devoted until
the late 1950s to the production of one main product: the single family
detached house on vacant land, the only type eligible for National
Housing Act financing.

A national housing policy dedicated to a single objective neglected
public intervention in rental accommodation for families in the lowest
third of the income distribution. When a substantial degree of national
resources and effort is devoted towards making every Canadian family
a house owner, then there is a special kind of label, a special taint or
blight to be placed upon those families who, despite all the favourable
manipulations in the basic policy, cannot afford a house of their own.
In such circumstances, the only possible conclusion to be drawn by
many right-thinking men is that those who cannot benefit from these
policies must be, in Galbraith’s words, the victims of “case poverty”.!°

Case poverty is commonly and properly related to some characteristics
of the individuals so afflicted. Nearly everyone else has mastered his
environment; this proves that it is not intractable. But some quality
peculiar to the individual or family involved — mental deficiency, bad
health, inability to adapt to the discipline of modern economic life,
excessive procreation, alcohol, insufficient education, or perhaps a
combination of several of these handicaps — have kept these individuals
from participating in the general well-being.

These pervasive influences have taken a long time to overcome in the
Canadian housing picture and it was only with the assumption of a
stronger role by several provincial governments in the 1960s that the
tide began to turn. Even so, progress can only be described as moderate
in a nation in which, in the late 1960s, not more than 5 per cent of
its annual housing starts of some 175,000 were devoted to public
housing; and this proportion was attained only in 1967 after years of
less adequate provision.

THE FIRST DECADE OF PUBLIC HOUSING: A SUMMING UP

Fifteen years of meetings and discussion, of speech-making and
brief-writing, of presentations to provincial ministers, federal officials,
local municipal councils, and groups of businessmen and service clubs,
had resulted, by 1960, in the construction of not more than 10,000 to
12,000 public housing units, depending upon how the count was made.
Some estimates of total public housing production included dwellings

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 37

constructed for occupancy by elderly persons or so-called “limited-
dividend” housing, other counts did not. It would be safe to insist
that no matter how the estimate was derived, the total number of such
dwelling units available for rent to low-income families did not exceed
15,000 in 1960.

Not only was there great discouragement at this meagre quantitative
achievement of the years 1949-1959, but by this time Canada was in
the midst of a severe economic recession which lasted well into 1963.
Both the federal government and those provincial governments who
had participated in the federal-provincial housing partnership during
the 1950s discontinued their encouragement of additional programs
and stood pat with those programs already under way and in the
process of construction. The result was even greater discouragement
for those voluntary associations and professionals who had hoped that
a vast program of public housing activity would have been mounted
by this time in many metropolitan areas. On the contrary, only thirty-
eight dwelling units (the last to be completed in the Lawrence Heights
project) were actually completed for occupancy by low-income families
in the metropolitan area of Toronto during the years 1958-1963.
Waiting lists grew only at a moderate rate because eligible families
realized that it was futile to make application for accommodation that
did not exist and for which there was no hope of attainment.

By 1961 it was clear to all interested parties that the federal-
provincial partnership had collapsed. It was not only that its total
accomplishment was grossly insufficient, but very little had been ap-
proved and no future programs were evident after the downturn in
Canadian economic activity during the winter of 1957-1958. Under
the circumstances, some persons concluded that the answer to the
stalemate lay in an entirely different approach through an elevation of
the role of the local housing authority. It was pointed out that such
authorities in the United States had a great deal more power than
similar bodies in Canada, that they raised their own funds at relatively
low interest rates through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds, that they
produced their own programs and plans for several years ahead (sub-
ject to the approval of federal and state authorities), that they acquired
land, hired architects, developed plans, let contracts and, in general,
acted as Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was attempting to
act on behalf of an entire nation.

In Metropolitan Toronto the drive towards a rejuvenated local
housing authority was shaped by a number of lay and professional
persons in the voluntary services and by elected and appointed officials
at the political level. The chairman of the Metropolitan Toronto
Council lent additional support to the creation of a new regional or
metropolitan-wide Housing Authority which would absorb all existing

38 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

authorities in the area: two organizations involved in public housing
for families and two in the form of Limited-Dividend Housing Corpora-
tions devoted primarily to the production of housing for the elderly.
In 1962 the view spread and gained credence that the federal govern-
ment was prepared to amend the National Housing Act to encourage
the growth and development of such comprehensive regional author-
ities by permitting direct access to federal funds available under
certain sections of the Act such as: Section 16 (Limited-Dividend),
Section 23 (Urban Redevelopment), and Section 36 (Federal-Provin-
cial Projects). Hopes were high at this time but they were dashed by
a series of disasters, including the deaths of the federal minister
responsible for housing affairs, the president of Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation, and the director of the Housing Branch of the
Department of Economics and Development in Ontario.

In 1964 the Government of Ontario, aware that the National
Housing Act would in fact soon be amended to encourage the assump-
tion of significant responsibilities by local or provincial authorities,
developed the concept of a provincial housing corporation and created
this agency with the passage of the Ontario Housing Corporation Act
in June 1964. In the same month, amendments to the National Housing
Act revolutionalized the approach to public participation in the pro-
vision of accommodation to low-income persons.!?

THE 1964 AMENDMENTS: A TURNING POINT IN
CANADIAN HOUSING POLICY

The 1964 amendments, which virtually re-wrote most of the social
provisions of the National Housing Act, included the following signi-
ficant changes.

1. A new Section 16A was added to authorize loans to non-profit
corporations owned by. a province, municipality or any agency
thereof, or by a charitable corporation for the construction or
purchase of a housing project or housing accommodation of the
hostel or dormitory type for use as a low-rental housing project.
This amendment may be considered to be a substantial expansion
of the former Section 16, the so-called “limited dividend section”,
but of most significance is the implication that the governments
of the provinces would enter into this specific activity.

2. Part III of the National Housing Act was re-titled “Urban
Renewal” as distinct from its previous designation of “Urban
Redevelopment”. This part of the Act which had, from 1954,
been comprised entirely of Section 23 was substantially re-
written. This was the first time the phrase “urban renewal” was

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 39

written into the National Housing Act and Section 23 was
broadened considerably to encompass a broad-gauge approach
to the prevention and treatment of blighted and slum areas in
urban municipalities.

Specifically, Section 23 was expanded by the addition of new

Sections numbered 23A to 23F. These sub-sections were designed
to cover, respectively, contributions for preparation of an urban-
renewal scheme, contributions for implementing an urban-
renewal scheme, loans for an urban-renewal scheme, insured
loans for housing projects in urban-renewal areas, authorization
for expenditures from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and
regulations, As far as the governments of the provinces were
concerned, Sections 2A, B, and C were most important. Not only
were the provinces clearly recognized as the authority which
must approve local urban-renewal plans, but the federal govern-
ment agreed to pay one-half of the costs of preparing and
implementing such schemes. In addition, Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation recognized for the first time that imple-
mentation would require the employment of persons to assist in
the re-location of individuals and families dispossessed of housing
accommodation by urban-renewal programs.
Section 36 of the 1954 Act, which was the first portion of Part
VI, entitled “Federal-Provincial Projects,” was re-numbered as
Section 35A and Part VI was re-titled “Public Housing”.
Although the federal-provincial partnership had been in force
since the end of 1949, this was the first time that the phrase
“public housing” had appeared in the National Housing Act.

Section 35A was, in fact, a re-statement of the earlier federal-
provincial partnership, with the addition of the possible inclusion
of hostel or dormitory type housing accommodation in federal-
provincial housing projects. The 75-25 division of financial
responsibility in both capital costs and Iosses (subsidies) between
the federal and provincial governments was continued unchanged.
The entire field of public housing operations was broadened
substantially with the enactment of new portions of Section 35
numbered 35B to E. In Section 35B the term “public housing
agency” was defined to include a corporation “wholly owned by
the government of a province or any agency thereof”, or “one
or more municipalities in a province”. This revised definition,
along with the new financial provisions in Sections 35 C to E,
brought the Canadian provinces directly into the field of public
housing for the first time in our housing history.

In Section 35C, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation
was permitted to make loans to assist a province, municipality

40 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

or public-housing agency to acquire lands for public-housing
projects. The maximum loan that might be made for this purpose
was 90 per cent of the cost of acquiring and servicing the land.
Since it was anticipated that a land-acquisition program would
soon be followed by the construction of a public-housing project,
loans under this section were expected to be for relatively short
terms and in no case for more than 15 years.

This new Section was followed by another, Section 35D,
which permitted the federal agency to make loans to provinces,
municipalities and public housing agencies “to construct, acquire,
and operate public housing projects”. Loans made under this
Section were to be subject to conditions similar to those applying
to limited dividend housing companies and to non-profit corpora-
tions. In short, these loans could not exceed 90 per cent of the
cost of the project as determined by the Corporation and would
be for a term not exceeding fifty years from the date of completion
or acquisition of the project. Finally, in the third new section,
Section 35E, the federal Corporation was authorized to make
contributions towards the operating losses of subsidized public-
housing projects owned and operated by a provincial, municipal
and public-housing agency for the benefit of persons of low
income. The maximum federal contribution was set at 50 per
cent for a period not in excess of fifty years.

In these new sections the National Housing Act was slanted
in the direction of new forms of initiative by local or provincial
governments. Clearly, the terms available in the completely
revised Section 35 under the rubric “public housing” were far
more favourable than the terms provided in the familiar federal-
provincial partnership (although these provisions were retained
as an alternative if desired by any provincial jurisdiction). The
increase in the proportion of capital contributions was, of course,
accompanied by a decrease in the proportion of subsidies which
the federal government would pay; the amount of the subsidies
however had rarely appeared to be a major consideration affecting
the decisions on public housing of municipalities and provinces.
The capital contribution, however, had been an important deter-
rent to local initiatives in most municipalities.

Although it may not have been apparent in June 1964, the amend-
ments passed that month proved to be a turning point in Canadian
housing history. From that time on the whole question of whether slum
or blighted areas were to be cleared, the social questions accompanying
the processes of re-housing and relocation, the whole question of
whether low-income persons and families were to be offered decent
and adequate housing at a price they could afford — these and numerous

Housing Policy in Canada, 1940-1968 41

related social questions were put squarely in the laps of the provincial
governments. Their response during the ensuing years has been a clear
indication of their motivation, or lack of it, in the face of the most
opportune circumstances ever put before the network of intergovern-
mental organizations in this country. The roles of these governments
have become much clearer and, in the light of recent experience, it is
now possible to speculate upon the respective roles of the three levels of
government for the next decade or two.

NOTES

10, J. Firestone, Residential Real Estate in Canada (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1951) Table 109, p. 488.

2Canada, Advisory Committee on Reconstruction, Housing and Com-
munity Planning, Sub-Committee Report, No. 4 (Ottawa: King’s Printer,
1944).

’Canada, Advisory Committee on Reconstruction, Report on Social
Security for Canada, prepared by L. C. Marsh, (Ottawa: King’s Printer,
1943).

4Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, 9-10 George VI, c. 15,
1945. The corporation began its operations on January 1, 1946.

S“Housing in Canada, 1946-1970,” A supplement to the 25th annual
Report of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (Ottawa: 1970)
pp. 10-11.

®[bid., pp. 11-13.
Ubid., p. 12.

SAlbert Rose, Regent Park: A Study in Slum Clearance (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1958) pp. 63-68.

®1bid., pp. 100-102.

10. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1958) pp. 325-331.

11M. Dennis and S. Fish, Programs in Search of a Policy: Low Income
Housing in Canada (Toronto: Hakkert, 1972) pp. 145-146.

12An Act to Amend the National Housing Act (1954). 13 Elizabeth II,
c. 15, §. 8. June 1964.

CHAPTER 4

National Housing Policy for an
Urban Canada: The 1970s and Thereafter

The development of housing policies for Canada, appropriate for
the last three decades of the twentieth century, really began with the
election of the first Trudeau government in 1968. Pierre Elliot Trudeau
is an urbane man; he is also an urbanite, a native of the largest metro-
politan area in Canada, whose thinking has been deeply influenced by
the urbanization of this country since his birth in 1919. In the election
campaign of 1968 the new leader of the Liberal Party promised very
significant attention to the problems of Canadian cities. In August of
that year, shortly after his election, Trudeau asked one of his best
known cabinet ministers, Paul Hellyer, who had been given respon-
sibility for housing, to lead a Task Force on Housing and Urban
Development.

THE TASK FORCE ON HOUSING AND
URBAN DEVELOPMENT 1968-1969

The chairman of the Task Force asserted that his approach would
not be that of a Royal Commission which might take two or three
years to investigate every facet of its terms of reference and produce
a massive report. He emphasized speed and set as his goal the com-
pletion of a study within three to four months, and the production of a

44 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

teport within six months. The chairman was himself a housebuilder
and land developer who had become independently wealthy: he had
been first elected to the House of Commons at the age of twenty-five.
He was known to be strong, energetic, impatient in some of his
approaches; and many journalists suspected that his mind was already
made up about solutions to Canada’s housing problems. A seven-
member task force was quickly assembled and set to work with a
relatively small staff. In addition to Paul Hellyer, the members of the
task force were Dr. Doris Boyle, Dr. Pierre Dansereau, W. Peter
Carter, Robert Campeau, Dr. James Gillies, and C. E. Pratt.

Throughout the fall of 1968 it travelled from coast to coast and
held hearings in a great many large and small urban centres as well
as in certain rural areas. True to its chairman’s word, the members of
the task force swept into town like a whirlwind, occupied the local
schoolhouse auditorium for several hours on one or more evenings,
toured and visited housing projects, heard briefs which had been
submitted in advance and the special arguments of voluntary organiza-
tions, and quickly swept out of town. In the course of its sessions the
task force resorted to such unscientific strategies as asking for a show
of hands to determine whether those in attendance wished to own their
own homes rather than continue as tenants, roomers or boarders. In
addition, the chairman commissioned certain studies from consulting
firms who were provided with scarcely sufficient time to undertake
acceptable research investigations. These methods were part of the
reason for the debacle which ensued when the task force report was
ultimately tabled in Parliament on January 22, 1969.1

The essential responsibility of the task force was to establish the
requirements for and the limits of a federal role in the rapidly expanding
urban society. It is entirely clear that both the prime minister and the
chairman were convinced that the future of the Liberal Party lay in
its response to the needs of an urban society. In 1961 the Census of
Canada had reported that Canadians were 69.7 per cent urban dwellers;
by 1971 this proportion had increased to 76.1 per cent.? Even without
the benefit of the latter data, all parties in the House had the advantage
of the projections of the Gordon Commission, which reported, in 1959-
1960, that Canada would be almost entirely urbanized by 1990, if not
some years before,*

In the 1960s the federal-provincial arrangements in the fields of
housing and urban development had been oriented towards the provinces
assumption of their constitutional roles. The federal government’s
responsibility was to provide financial resources within a series of
programs which also required provincial and perhaps municipal con-
tributions, to set standards that would create more or less similar
patterns of inter-governmental relationships and of public housing

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 45

throughout the nation, and to ensure that the requirements of the
Naional Housing Act were met in both substance and spirit.

Within four years of the passage of the major 1964 Amendments
to the Act, it was clear that these federal roles would consign the
Government of Canada, and the party in power, to a minor position
in a nation of thirty million or more urban dwellers. Urban development
in Canada was bound to accelerate during the 1970s and 1980s if the
nation’s economic potential was realized, if the level of net immigration
was maintained at some moderate level (say 150,000 to 170,000 per
annum), and if Canada was to maintain its position as a nation with
one of the highest living standards in the world, a major partner in the
United Nations and NATO.

These were no longer the most significant agendas. The members of
the task force received a substantial number of briefs from across the
country, insisting that it was illogical and clearly irresponsible for the
federal government to maintain Ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries,
and Regional Economic Expansion without creating a ministry charged
with the responsibility of providing adequate housing accommodation
as well as the related urban infrastructure and services. I presented a
brief to the task force on September 30, 1968 in which I argued the
case for the creation of a federal Department of Housing.*

It is incredible that in our Western industrial urban society housing
and urban development continue to be one of the several (or part-
time) responsibilities of a minister of the Crown ... It must be
admitted at once that the question of the locus of ministerial respon-
sibility is by no means the major reason that Canada has failed to
meet all the emerging requirements of housing and urban development
during the past quarter-century. Nevertheless, the failure of the
Government of Canada to create a department and to name a minister
solely responsible for these developments seems indicative of an absence
of urgency at the highest levels.

It was clear from the manner in which the task force questioned
those who presented or responded to briefs that it was concerned with
a number of quite specific concerns:

1. the failure of the Canadian housebuilding industry, Canadian
financial institutions and the various levels of government to
build adequate supplies of housing at prices that a substantial
majority of families could afford to pay;

2. the failure of these institutions to meet the qualitative require-
ments of families; to build accommodation for very large families
as well as for elderly couples; to build rental housing, particularly
in apartment buildings, for families with more than two children;

3. the failure of intergovernmental programs to build more than a

46 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

token amount of housing leased on rent-geared-to-income scales
for low-income families;

4, the failure of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation to
adapt quickly to changing requirements for housing accommoda-
tion and other aspects of urban development within a rapidly
changing Canadian society; and,

5. the failure of the major urban planning organization within
government, in conjunction with architects, private housing and
development organizations, and those in the visual arts, to create
more interesting, varied and pleasing designs for housing, new
towns, and “satellite” communities.

The task force presented its report to Parliament right on schedule.
Major recommendations covered financing, land costs and utilization,
construction costs and techniques, social housing and special programs,
urban development, administrative structure, and research, including
the specific proposal that, “the federal government should establish a
federal Department of Housing and Urban Affairs.”>

The recommendations can be grouped under four main concerns:
to facilitate and expand home ownership; to reduce the cost of housing;
to de-emphasize the nature and role of public housing; to suggest the
most appropriate forms of urban development during the last quarter
of the twentieth century.

The recommendations designed to facilitate and expend home owner-
ship included these proposals:

— that the maximum NHA mortgage be increased from $18,000 to

$30,000;

~ that the amortization period of an NHA loan be expanded from

thirty-five to forty years;

~ that a reduction in down payments lead eventually to the prospect

of a nominal $100 down payment or no down payment;

— that the full benefits of NHA legislation with respect to mortgages

on new homes be extended to the purchase of existing homes;
~ that the insurance premium required on NHA mortgages, which
amounted to 2 per cent of the purchase price, be reduced to
I per cent; and,

— that private lending institutions be consulted once or twice a year
by federal officials to insure that they made every effort to channel
a sufficient proportion of their investment funds into residential
housing.®

The task force proposed a series of measures which, over several
years it argued, would cut the high cost of the main components of
home ownership: land, building materials, fees, and the cost of mort-
gages. It proposed:

— that a capital gains tax be imposed on the speculative profits of

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 47

all land sales, including the possibility of a special tax where land
transfers occurred without evidence of improvement;

— that the federal and provincial governments should remove all
sales tax on building materials for residential construction, with
the possibility that this change might begin with the introduction
of rebates on materials used in “low-cost housing”;

— that municipalities buy large quantities of land required for urban
development within their boundaries and that the federal govern-
ment make direct loans to them for this purpose;

— that an investigation be launched into restraint of prices in the
building industry and unfair labour practices; and,

— that fees in real-estate transactions paid to brokers, salesmen and
lawyers be reduced by some form of voluntary restraint.”

The report devoted ten of its eighty-five pages to a discussion of the
inadequacies of some of the older and larger public housing projects
in Canada and the social and economic evils that had developed among
tenant families. It had been anticipated that, in the wake of the task
force’s visit to Toronto’s Regent Park and Trefann Court, the report
would blast large concentrations of publicly-housed families. Yet the
recommendation that no more large projects be built had already been
implemented by the Ontario Housing Corporation and was part of the
philosophy of the other seven provincial housing corporations and two
housing commissions in Canada.

In an analysis published within two weeks of the tabling of the
report in Parliament, I argued that,

The task force has clearly put forward a number of recommendations
and proposals that can only be termed political, By any form of
analysis they constitute an intrusion into the rights and responsibilities
of provincial and local governments who, without doubt, are responsible
for housing and physical planning within their geographical jurisdiction.
The recommendation for forward purchase of land, the recommenda-
tion that local governments should be relieved by the provincial
governments of at least 80 per cent of the cost of education, the
recommendation that local governments (if they have not already
done so) should adopt the National Building Code by 1970, the
recommendation that regional governments should be set up through-
out the nation and that these governments should assume the respon-
sibility for purchasing and servicing land for urban development, the
recommendation that municipalities should examine and alter their
assessment procedures to ensure that speculation in land is no longer
fostered by inadequate assessment procedures — all of these are the
kind of proposals that Ottawa would choke upon if some provincial
commission of inquiry were to recommend a closer examination and
alteration of certain areas of federal jurisdiction to assist the meeting
of a specific problem.

It is my conclusion that one of the reasons for the formation of the
task force was to take away from the new provincial housing corpora-

48 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

tions, particularly the successful Ontario Housing Corporation, some
of the attention and kudos that have been gained through increasingly
active provincial initiatives since 1965... . Ottawa has provided 90 per
cent of the money but has had little of the credit. On the other hand,
the complaints and criticisms about.the chronic housing crisis through-
out Canada have been focused on the federal government.®

Within a day or two of the tabling of the report there was major
opposition to the recommendations from the general public, the pro-
vincial governments, the federal government and thus from within the
Liberal Party of Canada. It was not immediately apparent that the
Liberal caucus would take serious exception to the report, but within
a week there was considerable division of opinion. Although the prime
minister never stated publicly his opposition, it became obvious that
he and his cabinet had rejected the recommendations of the task force.
Within a few weeks Paul Hellyer resigned from the cabinet and within
a year left the Liberal Party and crossed the floor of the House.

This outcome of the work of the task force is extremely curious,
because the Hellyer Report laid the groundwork and developed the
parameters of what became federal housing policy in the first half of
the 1970s. Whatever the immediate political climate may have been
following the presentation of the report, its salient recommendations
have in fact been implemented. Moreover, they were implemented
quickly, commencing with the creation of a Ministry of State for Urban
Affairs in the 1970-1971 session of the twenty-eighth Parliament of
Canada.

A MINISTRY OF STATE FOR URBAN AFFAIRS

A clear recommendation of the task force, that a federal Ministry of
Housing and Urban Affairs be created, was implemented within eighteen
months. Prime Minister Trudeau had initiated and authorized Ministries
of State for a variety of purposes, including Science and Technology,
Environment, and Urban Affairs, by a Proclamation of June 30, 1971.
Robert K. Andras, was in fact, appointed early in 1970, but his first
title was “Minister Responsible for Housing”.

The minister’s first major speech in the House delivered on April 21,
1970 set the tone for a variety of programs in the field of housing
which, several years later, are still in the process of development. He
proposed the following:?

1. A revised rent-to-income scale for public housing, including
specific provisions that: (a) family size would be taken into
account in arriving at rents through a reduction of $2 per month
for each child after the second; (b) working wives would be

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 49

allowed to earn up to $900 per annum (up from the previous
limit of $250) before such earnings would be considered income
for the purpose of calculating rent; (c) incomes of one-parent
families, for the purpose of calculating rents, would be reduced
by up to $900 per annum to compensate for the fact that sole-
supporting parents do not have the opportunities for additional
earnings; and, (d) the maximum proportion of income required
as rent in the higher income range would be reduced from 30 to
25 per cent.
2. Social and recreational facilities in both new and existing public
housing projects would be eligible for federal assistance.
3. Duly constituted public housing tenant associations would be
assisted with grants.
4. A model lease would be developed and incorporated within a
revised manual of procedures for housing authorities.
5. Formal training programs in public housing management would
be initiated in co-operation with the provinces.
The minister also placed a great deal of emphasis on housing design,
location and density. On the question of tenant organization and
involvement in the management of public housing, he stated,

I am convinced that giving tenants some voice in the administration
of their project is a matter of social justice and would help to encourage
a new and healthier outlook all around and remove a major cause of
many of the difficulties we have experienced to this time.1°

It was established by Parliament that the new ministry, which was
not a full-fledged department of the Government of Canada, would be
responsible for housing policy. The Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation would be responsible for reporting through the new
minister and he in turn would be responsible to Parliament. It was not
considered sufficient, obviously, to establish a Ministry of Housing or
even a Ministry of Housing and Urban Development; the designation
“urban affairs” was surely a far broader-concept than any of the other
titles suggested." It is clear why the prime minister chose such word-
ing, because no level of government was possessed of the constitutional
responsibility in a field as conceptually vague and as boundless as
“urban affairs”; though for forty years the major constitutional respon-
sibility in the field of housing lay with the provincial governments. It
is also clear that the term “urban development” was reprehensible.
Perhaps the Liberal Party, conscious of the significance of rural affairs,
was determined not to alienate its relatively modest support in rural
areas and in the Western provinces by appearing to espouse urban
development. Urban affairs surely encompassed more than simply
development of our cities.

50 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

In its first decade the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs was in a
process of evolution of role, responsibility and programs.’* Although
there had been no formal admission of conflict it was clear that the
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation came under strong attack
by the new ministry. The corporation was placed on the defensive, and
important staff positions were created by the minister and literally
imposed upon the administrative structure of CMHC. The result was
confusion, irritation, and conflict between the corporation and the
ministry. In the minds of many parliamentarians and interested ob-
servers beyond the national capital, the creation of this ministry was
an unproductive act.t®

In his two years as minister, Robert Andras truly exercised super-
vision over a tooling-up process. The ministry was organized to assist
him in policy formulation for the cabinet; a research division was
created with sufficient funds to engage a substantial staff and a number
of capable social scientists and urban affairs researchers; and, whether
it wanted to be or not, the CMHC was reorganized. From the point
of view of the critics of the corporation, it was dragged reluctantly
into the second half of the twentieth century; to its devoted supporters,
it was being emasculated by those forces within government which
either opposed its role of the previous quarter-century or felt it should
be replaced by some new structure developed within the ministry.
There are many persons, within and without government, who sincerely
deplore the allocation of socio-economic functions to Crown corpora-
tions as they are structures beyond the direct control of Parliament.
From this point of view, the creation of a ministry that would exercise
some control over the corporation, which had had a relatively free
hand in policy formulation and implementation for a very long time,
was a step in the right direction.

The first Minister of State for Urban Affairs implemented many of
the proposals of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development,
but none was more important than the continued ban on urban
renewal activities. In 1968 a substantial number of urban renewal
schemes (probably more than thirty in all) were awaiting continued
approval and funding in their respective municipalities. Mr. Hellyer,
however, imposed a ban on further development of already approved
projects pending completion of the study to be undertaken by his task
force. It had been hoped that the new minister, following rejection of
the Hellyer report, would restore the status quo in the urban renewal
process or, at the very least, would enable those projects already under-
way to be completed. The government seemed to have accepted the
view of the Hellyer task force that urban renewal was a damaging
process, a process in which many low-income families were removed
from traditional neighbourhoods, relocated elsewhere — sometimes in

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 51

public housing but often in older, less desirable and sub-standard
accommodation ~ and that better solutions needed to be found for the
rehabilitation of the central core.4* Be that as it may, the task force
found no new evidence on the subject, nor did it present any solution
to the problem of rebuilding the downtown areas of our major urban
centres.

It was the ministry’s view, apparently, that the positions adopted
by the government during the period September 1968 to March 1969
should be continued pending further intensive studies of urbanization
and housing policies. The principal study to emerge!® was a serious
condemnation of Canadian housing, planning and urban development
policies over the previous three decades. Lithwick, in fact, rejected all
the work of the previous quarter century ~ beginning with the amend-
ments to the NHA setting up the federal-provincial partnership in
November 1949 — as futile gestures which were at best anti-social. He
had, of course, the advantage of hindsight, because as a relatively young
academic (he had been an elementary school pupil in the post-war
years) he could scarcely have appreciated the problems of passing new
legislation and persuading the Canadian public in 1948-1949 that
government should intervene in the housing market on behalf of low-
income or disadvantaged families and individuals.

Lithwick’s study was and remains the most comprehensive analysis
of the process of urbanization ever undertaken in Canada. It was both
highly conceptual and thoroughly empirical. The conceptual analysis
was bolstered not only by the available data up to and including the
censuses of 1961 and 1966 but also by detailed forecasts of such major
components of urban development as housing demand and transporta-
tion requirements.

It is significant that the final section of this document, which
became known as “The Lithwick Report”, emphasized the. notion of
“policy” under the general rubric of “Urban Prospects and Policy”.
The section dealing with “housing in the urban future” forecast housing
demand in eleven major metropolitan areas from Halifax to Vancouver
to the year 2001. Total demand, moreover, was broken down between
family and non-family.

The grim picture which emerged from the forecast visualized required
additions to the housing stock for major metropolitan areas alone of
more than 800,000 dwelling units in the 1970s, nearly 900,000 in the
1980s, more than 950,000 in the last decade of the century — a total
of 2,651,000 between 1971 and 2001. This forecast, disregarding the
requirements for the balance of the population residing outside the
major metropolitan areas studied in 1970, meant a two-thirds addition
to the total existent Canadian housing stock at that time.

Publication of the Lithwick Report and six significant research

52 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

monographs created somewhat of a sensation in 1970-71 as Robert
Andras began to interpret the federal role for urban affairs. Lithwick
and some of his colleagues, as well as the minister, were in great
demand to speak at universities, to participate in seminars, and to
address annual meetings of major trade associations in the housing and
building industry, until the awful truth emerged in late spring of 1971:
neither Lithwick nor Andras had any real solution to the problems of
urbanization and the enormous housing requirements of the last third
of the twentieth century. In a seminar sponsored by the Centre for
Urban and Community Studies at the University of Toronto, Professor
Lithwick not only decried the value of most urban research in Canada
(a good deal of which had been undertaken by members of his audi-
ence), but offered as a solution to the problem of urban growth federal
restriction on immigration to Canada. His audience found this a very
weak answer to the problem.’*

Within a few months it seemed apparent that the impact of Lith-
wick’s major analyses of urban prospects and policies had not been
enthusiastically received by the cabinet (insofar as Robert Andras had
presented the material to his senior colleagues). In a strongly worded
statement issued to the press in early summer 1971, Professor Lithwick
ceremoniously resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary (equivalent
to senior Assistant Deputy Minister) in the Ministry of State for Urban
Affairs. In his explanation he emphasized his frustration at the painfully
slow evolution of federal housing policies and went so far as to indicate
that he saw very little prospect of a strong federal initiative in con-
trolling and directing the course of Canadian urban development during
the balance of the century.

The second significant research venture by the Ministry was a
contractual arrangement with Michael Dennis and Susan Fish. They
embarked upon a major study of housing policies in Canada which
apparently so disturbed the government in confidential draft form that
the ministry was reluctant to publish it. A short time thereafter a full
copy was leaked to one of the opposition parties in the House of
Commons and a great many allegations based on it were made by the
leaders of the two opposition parties. The government was firmly
criticized for refusing to publish the document, and soon thereafter
Dennis and Fish enlisted the services of a Toronto publishing house
and issued their report.17

There is no question that the Dennis and Fish Report, as it became
known, is the most comprehensive analysis of the housing problem in
Canada since the publication of the Curtis Report in 1944.18 The tone
which permeates the entire report is one of frustration, anger and
belligerence. The authors delve into several facets of the housing
problem, including interest rates, the shortage of serviced land, and,

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 53

inevitably, poverty and low-income among that substantial segment of
Canadians whose housing accommodation is grossly inadequate.

Lithwick, as an economist, had berated not only politicians but his
academic colleagues and predecessors for their gross neglect of the
economics of urbanization. Dennis and Fish continued this onslaught
on a wider front involving all social scientists and the entire society for
its neglect of the requirements of low-income Canadians, presumably
through an undying faith in the “filtering down” process whereby the
better housing occupied by middie and upper-middle income groups
eventually deteriorated and is made available to the lower-income
groups. The authors were, however, fifteen years late in denying the
validity of that ancient argument.

The greatest difficulty in accepting the analysis stemming from angry
outbursts at the general stupidity and callousness of Canadians rests in
the fact that with Dennis and Fish there is no middle ground. In their
view, all Canadians have neglected the needs of the poor for decent
and adequate housing accommodation; all politicians are primarily
interested in rebuilding the core of our urban centres without regard
for the impact on those residents who are most likely to be poor,
elderly or members of families with many children; and all legislation
has been grossly deficient because it is not intended to interfere with
traditional housing market operations. In short, all politicians are
hand-in-glove with all housebuilders, land developers and subcontrac-
tors, for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the needy. Perhaps
the authors assumed that there was a significant need for a strong
radical posture in describing, dissecting and re-assembling the compon-
ents of our critical housing problem. They were not the first to make
this assumption .but in the late 1970s they retain the distinction of
being the most strident of the critics. It is not difficult to understand
that, if indeed he had initiated their study, Robert Andras was under
no compulsion to engage in a masochistic exercise by distributing it
widely under the government imprint.

In my view, Dennis and Fish ended up in exactly the same position
as Lithwick in seeking new fundamental solutions to some of the most
complicated problems in Canadian social and economic development.
The concluding chapters of their report dealt with a so-called “com-
prehensive housing policy” and its administration. They insisted that
there must first of all be a statement of national housing goals:
providing equal access to decent housing for all Canadians, controlling
housing price inflation, improving the environmental quality of all
housing, conserving and upgrading the existing housing stock, maximiz-
ing the dignity and freedom of choice of the individual user of housing,
and creating a decision-making process that is open to user input and
whose centre of authority is as close to the user as possible.!®

54 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

It is difficult for any student of the subject whose acquaintance pre-
dates 1968 to find anything new in these motherhood statements.
Moreover, they imply on the one hand conditions which do not exist
anywhere in the world (for example, “equal access to decent housing’’),
and a national economy which has full control of its development (for
example, “controlling house price inflation”).

There is no doubt that Dennis and Fish had an important impact
upon new federal housing legislation passed in 1973 and upon the
general posture of federal spokesmen in housing and urban affairs.
Their report drew sharp attention to the socio-economic inequities in
the provision of housing in Canada. It emphasized and documented
the gross disadvantages of Canadian individuals and families in the
lower half of the income scale. It pointed to conflicts between national
policy statements on the one hand and national housing programs on
the other; and between several departments of the Government of
Canada whose policies affect housing and urban affairs, and Central
Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In short, Programs in Search of
a Policy provided a sufficiently long and difficult agenda for the new
Ministry of State for Urban Affairs that the latter could well have
occupied itself in a decade of policy responses; but time and events do
not stand still and new situations in the housing market were soon to
push the report into the background.

THE 1973 AMENDMENTS TO THE NATIONAL HOUSING ACT

The sequence of dramatic events since the election of the first
Trudeau government in 1968 — the appointment of the Task Force on
Housing and Urban Development and rejection of its report; the
appointment of Professor Lithwick, the publication of several major
research monographs and rejection of Lithwick’s recommendations; the
appointment of Michael Dennis, publication of the Dennis and Fish
monograph and rejection of its policy recommendations ~ led to a
clear expectation of major changes in federal legislation. In 1972 the
second Minister of State for Urban Affairs, Ron Basford, introduced
into the House a draft bill containing a series of important new initia-
tives, all of which died on the order paper when the prime minister
called an election for early fall. The fact that the Trudeau government
was returned with only a two-seat advantage over the Conservative
Party and was forced to rely on the New Democratic Party to maintain
its position as the Government of Canada had two important conse-
quences for prospective housing legislation. On the one hand, wide-
spread political confusion made it inevitable that amendments to the
NHA would not be among the highest priority legislation; on the other

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 55

hand, the enormous interest of the NDP (which held the balance of
power) in all forms of social legislation ensured that new housing
legislation could not be long delayed.

Early in 1973 Parliament passed a substantial series of amendments
to the NHA (which continues to be cited as the National Housing Act,
1953-54, c. 23, S. 1). A detailed examination of the 1973 consolidation
reveals 36 amendments.*° Many of the changes are in the nature of
legislative housekeeping and require no further explanation. Let us
turn to the minister’s exposition of what he termed “New National
Housing Act Programs”.** In a strong effort to make the most of the
1973 amendments, ten new programs were identified. These will be
described in the order in which they appeared in the minister’s publicity
kit distributed widely throughout the country.

(1) Assisted Home Ownership (new Sections 34.15 and 34.16)

These sections were introduced into the Act under Part IV.2 as
“Loans to Facilitate Home-Ownership”. In a real sense, such changes
derived from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s traditional
responsibilities in the field of direct lending whereby loans could be
made to individuals living in geographical areas where conventional
mortgages were not available. The major change, however, is simply
that the AHOP was directed towards lower-income families with one
or more dependent children. The minister’s explanation of objectives
and methods was as follows.

Assistance is provided in accordance with a graduated scale of adjusted
family incomes. As family income decreases in the income scale,
assistance increases progressively. Following interest rate adjustments
down to CMHC’s lowest rate, a maximum grant of $300 per annum is
available to make further reductions in monthly charges.

The objective is to enable families to own a house without spending
more than 25 per cent of their gross income in meeting the monthly
costs of mortgage loan repayments and municipal taxes. Regular home-
owner housing, housing built on leased land or condominium forms of
housing all qualify under the program.??

AHOP was considered by both federal and provincial officials to
have been a substantial success and a significant legislative innovation.
There are, in fact, two parts to the “assistance” available under the
scheme: firstly, an interest reduction loan (literally a second mortgage)
designed to reduce the effective rate of interest from current levels to
8 per cent. The intent was to reduce the amount of total family income
required to meet debt service charges within a 25-30 per cent ratio of

56 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

shelter costs to gross income, depending upon the specified maximum
sale prices in difficult localities. The loan is repayable after six years.

The second form of assistance to the purchaser was a direct grant
(originally $300 per annum) to a maximum $750 per annum to
further reduce the burden of shelter costs on moderate-income families.
This grant could bring families with incomes of $800-$900 per month
into the market. Success of these concepts is attested to by the action
of the governments of Nova Scotia (1974-1975) and Ontario (1976-
1977) to add an additional grant to the subsidy. In Ontario’s case a
further $750 per annum was possible in the first year, one implication
being the potential entry into home ownership of families with $7,000 —
$8,500 per annum.

CMHC attributed an important part of the successful 1976 home-
building program to AHOP in its assessment of that year’s activity:

Housing starts in 1976 totalled 273,203 units, up from 231,456 in 1975
and above the previous record of 268,529 in 1973 . . . Private insti-
tutional lending for new residential construction increased from $4.7
billion in 1975 to $6.5 billion in 1976, or by 38 per cent. This increase
was almost entirely attributable to increased NHA activity, and parti-
cularly to the AHOP and ARP (Assisted Rental) Programs .. . The
demand for mortgage funds for new residential construction was strong
throughout 1976 . . . The strength in the second half of the year was
due in large part to the AHOP and ARP Programs.?4

The danger in AHOP rests in its fundamental reliance on continued
price inflation in the Canadian economy. For the low or moderate-income
purchaser of an AHOP-financed home there are two important require-
ments which come into sharp focus six years after purchase. First of
all, repayment of the interest reduction loan must commence in the
seventh year, and at the rate of interest then prevailing. This rate could
be 3 to 5 percentage points higher than the 8 per cent rate for the first
five years. Clearly, the purchaser needs a substantially higher income
than the one prevailing at the time home ownership commenced.
Inflation will likely be a prerequisite to the attainment of such income.
The second requirement is a sufficient rise in all prices and thus
allowable or attainable incomes, to permit the purchaser to maintain a
reasonable debt service ratio,

The future did not bode well for AHOP participants. If the prospects
for new growth and development and thus the prospects for expanded
employment were encouraging, the assumptions governing the program
might be reasonable. All the forecasts of the late 1970s, however,
appear to indicate that economic growth for the early to mid-1980s
will be relatively modest and that unemployment will remain at a level
of 8 per cent. Taking this into consideration, it is doubtful that appro-

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 57

priate housing policies can be devised to meet the needs of all income
groups given statistical projections of an additional 150,000 families
and/or 220,000 households being formed per annum.?>

(2) Non-Profit Housing Assistance (new Section 15.1)

The purpose of this amendment is “to make it easier for non-profit
housing organizations to develop housing projects.” Loans may be
made to non-profit corporations of three types: those constituted
exclusively for charitable purposes, co-operative associations whose
members will make up the majority of those who will occupy the
housing, and housing co-operatives owned entirely by a municipality
or an agency of a municipality. In all cases the loan may be in an
amount equal to the total lending value of the project.?® Moreover,
CMHC is enabled to make an additional contribution not exceeding
10 per cent of the capital cost of projects developed by any of these
three types of non-profit co-operatives.

(3) Co-operative Housing Assistance

The act was amended in several sections to extend the provisions
for co-operative housing and various forms of assistance were added
to make it easier for low-income families and persons to obtain housing
through co-operative associations. In the past only recognized formal
co-operative associations were enabled to secure loans. The 1973
amendments encouraged groups of individuals to organize themselves
in co-operatives not only to build new housing but to purchase existing
housing and to rehabilitate it.

(4) Neighbourhood Improvement Program (new Part HI.1, S. 27)

In the 1973 act NIP follows immediately upon part III, “Urban
Renewal”. This new program is thus a broadened and more deliberate
extension of the traditional concepts of clearance and renewal. The new
section begins,

For the purpose of improving the amenities of neighbourhoods and the
housing and living conditions of the residents of such neighbourhoods,
the corporation may make contributions and loans pursuant to this
Part to or for the benefit of municipalities in a province.

In the first instance, however, CMHC is required to enter into an
agreement with a province for the purposes just described. This require-

58 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

ment has become known loosely as “the master agreement” which, the
legislation states, sets out the criteria governing the selection of neigh-
bourhoods and, in general, prescribes the procedures under which
applications are made.

Under the heading “Neighbourhood Eligibility”, the 1973 kit states:

The criteria whereby municipalities and neighbourhoods may participate
in this program are set out in agreements between the federal govern-
ment and each of the provincial governments.

In general, however, it is expected that participating neighbourhoods

will have the following characteristics:

1. They will be predominantly residential although they may contain
local stores, schools, banks, churches, small businesses and perhaps
some non-conforming uses of land;

2. A significant proportion of the existing housing stock is in need of
improvement and repair in order for it to comply with minimum
standards of health and safety;

3. Most of the housing in the neighbourhood is occupied by people of
low to moderate income;

4. The available social and recreational amenities are considered to be
inadequate.

In the minister’s presentation to Parliament and in a variety of
speeches and background papers released by the ministry, NIP is
fundamentally the logical expansion of legislation which dates from
1944 in the Canadian housing annals. Some of the very language of
Section 12 of the National Housing Act, 1944 and Section 23 of the
National Housing Act, 1954, appears almost intact in the 1973 Amend-
ments which offered two apparently new programs described as a
“neighbourhood improvement programme” and a “residential rehabili-
tation programme”.?”

The federal contribution through CMHC is identical with the 50
per cent available thirty years ago for “acquisition and clearance of
sub-standard neighbourhoods”. The major difference is that NIP does
not contemplate clearance (except as indicated below) but obviously,
from its very title, is intended to emphasize “improvement”. The federal
contribution is made with respect to the costs of selecting appropriate
neighbourhoods, acquiring parcels of land for low-income family
dwellings of low density, the acquisition and clearance of land for
social or recreational facilities, the construction of such facilities, and
so on. The contribution is also intended to assist in the relocation of
persons whose accommodation is lost through neighbourhood improve-
ment and, finally, the municipal staffing of the entire process. These
forms of encouragement and financial assistance encompassed within
NIP had been available for some time.

Since 1964 the federal government had also contributed to the costs
of improved municipal and public utility services in designated urban

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 59

renewal neighbourhoods. This contribution is continued at the rate of
25 per cent but was expanded to include the acquisition and clearance
of land “where the existing housing is not consistent with the planned
general character of the neighbourhood”. Central Mortgage and Hous-
ing Corporation may make further loans of up to 75 per cent of the
costs incurred by municipalities which participate in a Neighbourhood
Improvement Program.?8

(5) Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (Part IV.1)

Rehabilitation as a concept has been a part of the National Housing
Act since 1944 and has been one of the least successful aspects of
federal housing legislation. The intent in 1972-1973 was to provide a
fillip to this aspect of traditional legislation by encouraging the main-
tenance and improvement of existing housing stock. It has always been
recognized that the vast majority of housing accommodation in Canada
has been in the form of existing housing, much of which is forty to
fifty years old or even older.?®

In 1973 RRAP was described as a new program. It is difficult to
comprehend the newness of the program because it did little more than
specify more clearly the nature of eligibility for federal assistance and
a new approach in the form of “forgivable loans”. In the previous
three decades the major problem with the rehabilitation section of the
Act was that those persons who most required financial assistance for
repair and improvement of owner-occupied accommodation were the
least likely to borrow money, even under relatively generous terms,
because they tended to be in families of low income or elderly persons
or both. Moreover, those dwellings owned by absentee landlords were
not likely to be repaired, since the cost of improvements would mean
that rents would need to be raised; in most cases, the landlord could
not see this prospect in the neighbourhoods in which he owned such
accommodation.

The minister’s program of 1973 specified that eligible homeowners
could not earn more than $11,000 per year. Up to $5,000 per dwelling
unit could be borrowed at a less than the normal rate of interest (this
represented an increase in the maximum lending value of $1,000 per
dwelling unit, whereas for nearly two decades $10,000 per dwelling
unit had been available under the United States legislation) .®° If the
Canadian homeowner earned less than $6,000 per annum, a portion of
the loan did not have to be repaid provided that the owner continued
to occupy and maintain the accommodation. In the range $6,000 to
$11,000 per annum the forgiveness portion was progressively reduced
as income increased.*

60 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Landlords who agreed to accept rent controls were also eligible for
assistance under RRAP, together with non-profit corporations and
co-operatives. There was, however, a very important restriction: the
dwellings to be rehabilitated, whether owner-occupied or owned by
absentee landlords, had to be located in Neighbourhood Improvement
Program Areas; if they were in other areas they could be included
only by special agreement with the province concerned. Non-profit
corporations and co-operatives, however, could purchase older accom-
modation, renovate it, and make it available regardless of its location.®*
A good deal of the additional funds allocated in recent years are, in
fact, accounted for by the activity of non-profit housing corporations.

In 1973 the NHA was amended by the addition of the important
Section 34.1(3), which stated that no loan would be made under
RRAP unless the province of the municipality “has adopted occupancy
and building maintenance standards satisfactory to the Corporation”.

(6) Land Assembly Assistance

The minister announced as his “sixth programme”, assistance avail-
able under Sections 40 and 42 of the NHA to provinces and munici-
palities wishing to assemble and develop land for residential and
associated purposes, or “to establish land banks for future development
of a predominantly residential nature”. The language of Section 40(1)
is almost word for word the language incorporated in Section 35 of
the NHA in the significant amendments of November 1949. What,
then, is new about land assembly when in the Metropolitan Toronto
area, for example, such vast land acquisitions as Malvern, Bathurst-
Lawrence, Keele and Steeles (now accommodating both York Uni-
versity and a major public housing development known as Edgeley
Village) were undertaken between 1950 and 1952?

Since 1964 there has been a great deal more emphasis on the
concept of “land banking”, which appeared so beneficial in its potential
that it could scarcely be opposed by politicians, public servants, and
members of voluntary organizations. The objectives of land assembly
assistance included an improvement in the supply of land, a reduction
in the rate of interest with respect to the cost of serviced land, and a
program which would be scaled and timed “to assist the implementation
of municipal, regional and provincial growth policies”. What is involved
in attaining these objectives is simply the forward purchase of land,
since the price of land in a rapidly urbanizing society is bound to
increase. The costs to government in the acquisition and clearance, and
the ultimate subsidies required to provide housing accommodation to
needy families, will also increase considerably. The great difficulty was

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 61

that by 1973 relatively little land was available for land banking. Spurr
has demonstrated that all the major housing development organizations
operating in the Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver metropolitan areas
either owned or had under option vast acreages of undeveloped or
serviced land.** Despite the assistance of the land assembly provisions
of Section 42, land banking opportunities were severely limited.

(7) New Communities Program (Part VI.1)

This relatively new legislation expanded the concept of federal-
provincial agreements which had been originally introduced in Novem-
ber 1949 for the purpose of providing housing for rental to low-income
families. The scope of federal-provincial agreements had been broadly
expanded in 1954 and again in 1964, but in 1973 the legislation
included for the first time the acquisition of land “for a new community,
including land to be used for transportation corridors, linking the
community to other communities, or for public open space in or around
a new community or separating it from any other community.” Such
agreements could include assistance in undertaking the planning of a
new community and the design and installation of utilities, and other
services required for its development.

It must be clear that a “New Communities Program” is an obvious
and significant federal thrust in the emerging picture of Canada as an
urbanized nation. The Task Force on Housing and Urban Development
was quite aware of British and American experiments in the develop-
ment of new communities, and Paul Hellyer in particular made a
number of public addresses on this subject. Long before the report of
the task force was tabled, its chairman was on record as an advocate
of “satellite communities” and his report of January 1969 included
recommendations on the subject. In that sense the inclusion of a New
Communities Program in the 1973 amendments is a further example
of the government’s implementation of the recommendations of the
task force, despite the formal rejection and ignominy suffered by its
chairman.**

(8) Developmental Program

In Part V of the act, “Housing Research and Community Planning”,
an amendment to Section 37 was introduced to enable the federal
government to play a more significant role in the development of new
and innovative solutions to Canadian housing problems. This read,

62 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

The corporation may undertake or cause to be undertaken projects of
an experimental or developmental nature that may assist the corpora-
tion in the formulation and implementation of a housing policy
designed to meet the needs of the various communities in Canada.

The ministerial statement defined the developmental project as one
in which new forms of housing, new community designs, new methods
of providing services, and new social relationships “are put into prac-
tice, so that their efforts can be seen and tested.” The fact is that
financial assistance for research in these areas has been available since
the introduction of Part V in the act. The particular specification of
the notion of a developmental program was not included but there is
certainly a good deal of evidence that many innovations in community
planning have been delineated in social research funded by CMHC.*®

(9) Housing for Indians on Reserves

The Government of Canada has a specific responsibility for Canadian
status Indians who live on reserves, and this responsibility has included
the provision of new housing within the programs of both the Depart-
ment of Northern Development & Indian Affairs and the Central
Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Section 59 of the NHA was
amended in 1973 to authorize the corporation to “make loans to
Indians, as defined in the Indian Act, for the purpose of assisting in
the purchase, improvement, or construction of housing projects on
Indian reserves.” The objective of this change was to extend to Indians
access to housing by the provision of a mini-program of residential
rehabilitation on the reserves.

(10) Purchaser Protection

Finally, the minister indicated that it was the policy of his government
“that home buyers should benefit from the same kind of protection
available to purchasers of other goods in today’s economy.” In short,
the government was examining the possibility of developing a national
warranty system and to this end amended Section 8.1 of the NHA.

Section 8 had previously made it possible for the corporation to
make a contribution to a purchaser from the Mortgage Insurance Fund
when the builder had failed to complete the construction of a house
which was insured through the provisions of the National Housing Act.
The purpose of the contribution had been restricted to enable the
purchaser to complete construction of the house. In 1973 the legisla-

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 63

tion was amended to include bankruptcy of the builder prior to com-
pletion of a unit. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation could
make available to the prospective purchaser sufficient funds to discharge
any liability which he had incurred with respect to liens or “privileged
claims affecting the house.” This change was a major step in the
direction of a home warranty system but the minister expected that
further efforts would be required, and he indicated that the government
intended to proceed with a “home protection development plan”.

In 1976 the Government of Ontario passed legislation to enable the
Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada (HUDAC)
to establish a warranty program.** Builders were required to join the
scheme and to pay a fee for participation, or forfeit certain opportun-
ities within the building programs of the Ministry of Housing and the
Ontario Housing Corporation. The legislation protects the purchaser
of homes built by members of the plan by guaranteeing that certain
deficiencies attributable to the work of the construction company will
be rectified. There is no similar legislation in other Canadian provinces
but there are warranty plans and programs in which HUDAC and
other organizations play important roles and assume significant
responsibilities.

A BRIEF ASSESSMENT

In 1973, there was clearly an intention on the part of the ministry
and its senior agency, CMHC, to pursue certain traditional initiatives
with more vigour and flexibility. For the most part, the programs
themselves are more flexible interpretations of legislation dating back
to the National Housing Act of 1944. For example, the Neighbourhood
Improvement Program is a modern version of slum clearance and
urban renewal and the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program
is the modern version of the home improvement loan program which
first became available with the inclusion of Part IV, Home Improvement
and Home Extension loans, in the 1944 act.37

The recent additions to the program raise a further caveat which
may be more significant than an assessment that could be interpreted
by federal officials as mere quibbling over words. The fact is that all
these programs are administered by the Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation. It is never clear to either the casual or the professional
observer of such federal-provincial programs whether federal officials,
for whatever reason, are fully or only partially in support of programs
introduced by the ministries concerned. It was not at all clear that the
Ministry of State for Urban Affairs and the CMHC were at one which
each other as policy agency and implementation agency respectively.

64 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Nor was it clear that the regulations in such fields as neighbourhood
improvement and residential rehabilitation would be interpreted any
more flexibly than legislation that had been on the books for at least a
quarter of a century.*6

Such municipalities as Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Windsor,
Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Saint John, Halifax, and St. John’s have
all been deeply involved in the processes described first as “Slum
Clearance” (Section 12 of the NHA 1944), then as “Urban Redevelop-
ment” (Section 23, NHA 1954), and later as “Urban Renewal”
(Section 23, NHA 1954, as amended 1964). They did not approach
NIP in the mid-1970s with the great enthusiasm of an explorer coming
across a new diamond field or a new gold mine. Many forms of
encouragement and financial assistance encompassed within NIP had
been available for some time. Many approaches had been made during
the past twenty years by municipalities through their respective provin-
cial governments to the federal government through its agency, CMHC.

Some approaches had been fruitful, some had been abortive or
frustrated, and some had been facilitated and proved to be disastrous
programs. The general impression of provincial and local governmental
reception of Ron Basford’s announcements in 1972-1973 was that
they were not greeted with enthusiasm or open arms by elected and
appointed provincial and municipal officials. Nevertheless, NIP is here
and apparently has a thrust that is different; in particular, it is more
concerned with social consequences than with the urban renewal
schemes developed in accordance with the stipulations of Part II of the
NHA 1954, as amended. :

Despite the early skepticism with which the 1973 amendments were
greeted, there has been, as the statistical data attest, a substantial
upsurge in municipal and provincial activity within the two major
programs customarily referred to as NIP and RRAP.*® It is not a
question of further legislative changes.*® Rather, it is clear that modi-
fications of the regulations and a “selling job” by the minister and his
associates stimulated increasing interest, particularly within local gov-
ernments in every province and on the part of citizen-initiated housing
co-operatives.

NOTES

1Canada, Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development
(Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1969) pp. 85.

?Science Council of Canada, Perceptions 1: Study on Population and
Technology (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1975) Table 1, p. 13; Table 3,
p. 15.

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 65

8Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic
Prospects (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, November 1957) pp. 97-122.

4Albert Rose, A Brief to the Task Force on Housing and Urban Develop-
ment (Toronto: mimeo., September 30, 1968) p. 1-2.

5Canada, Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development,
p. 72.

8Ibid., pp. 26-37.
Udem., pp. 37-45.

8Albert Rose, “Paul Hellyer on Housing: Fact or Fiction?” (The Globe
and Mail, February 5, 1969) p. 7.

*Robert K. Andras, “Statement on Public Housing Program”, House of
Commons, April 21, 1970, pp. 10.

10[bid., p. 9. The matter of grants and the matter of a voice in the
management of public housing were closely related. Tenant associations
required funds to develop programs of interest to tenant families and to
convince provincial housing corporations or local housing authorities of
their representativesness and their capacity to share in a variety of
managerial tasks.

“The report of the Hellyer task force recommended a “Department of
Housing and Urban Affairs”. The prime minister and the cabinet rejected
both the notion of such a department and inclusion of “Housing” in the
title of the new ministry.

Late in 1978 Prime Minister Trudeau announced its abolition, pre-
sumably in deference to the wishes of the provinces and re-named the
corporation, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

13In 1976, for the first time one person, William Teron, was appointed
to the senior position in both the Ministry (as secretary, equivalent to
deputy minister) and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (as
president). The latter post Mr. Teron had already held for some three
years, This dual appointment was clearly intended “to heal wounds” and
to tie the corporation more closely to government policy in urban affairs.

14M. Lipman, “Relocation and Family Life’ (Toronto: University of
Toronto, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1968). In a study of the
Alexandra Park Urban Redevelopment Project in west-central Toronto,
Lipman found that displaced home-owners were forced to add substantially
higher amounts to their mortgage debt after expropriation and purchase of
another house in a different neighbourhood.

15N. H. Lithwick, Urban Canada: Problems and Prospects (Ottawa:
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, December 1970).

16Lithwick spoke at the University of Toronto on February 10, 1971.

17Michael Dennis and Susan Fish, Programs in Search of a Policy: Low
Income Housing in Canada (Toronto: Hakkert, 1972).

18Canada, Report of the Advisory Committee on Reconstruction (Ottawa:
1944), Vol. IV.

66 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

19Dennis and Fish, op. cit., p. 349.
20RS. c. N-10, 2. 2-59; 1973. c. 18, S. 1-21.

21Government of Canada, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation,
New National Housing Act Programs, 1973, not paged.

*2First program description, August 1973.
28To about $11,000-$12,000, per annum.

24Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statis-
tics, 1976 (Ottawa: CMHC, 1977) pp. viii-x.

*5Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statis-
tics, 1975 (Ottawa: CMHC, 1976) Table 110, p. 88.

26Total lending value” is a concept utilized by mortgage appraisors to
indicate the maximum amount upon which a loan may be based. It is
usually less than market values.

27Albert Rose, “Relevance of NIP to Inner-City Areas”, Presentation to
the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, (Toronto: University of
Toronto, mimeo., September 1973) pp. 27.

28Nevertheless, between 1973 and 1976 grants under NIP (NHA, Sec.
27.2) exceeded $143 million and loans to the provinces under Sec. 27.5
approached $32 million. See Canadian Housing Statistics, 1976, Table 70,
p. 62.

29Albert Rose and Donald F. Bellamy, Rehabilitation of Housing in
Central Toronto. A report submitted to the City of Toronto Planning Board,
September 1966, pp. 1-10.

80The maximum amount which could be borrowed under RRAP was
increased to $10,000 in October 1976. The rate of interest was 8 per cent.

81[n 1973 one-half of the maximum loan, that is, $2,500 was forgivable.
When the loan maximum was increased to $10,000, the forgivable portion
was increased to $3,750, The borrower literally earns a forgivable portion
at the rate of $750 per annum and thus reaches the maximum in five years.

®2Home improvement activity increased greatly in dollar volume under
RRAP between 1973 and 1978; $319 million were committed in loans by
the latter year. See Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978, Table 72, p. 64.

38Peter Spurr, Land and Urban Development (Toronto: James Lorimer
and Co., 1976) pp. 111-113; table A-7, p. 411; and table A-8, p. 412.
Spurr’s report, described as “a preliminary study”, was commissioned by
CMHC in part during 1972-73. The author offered the completed study to
the corporation in August 1974 and was hired to develop it for publication.
In 1976 CMHC decided not to publish it and James Lorimer and Co. made
it available to the public.

34Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development, op. cit.
p. 75. In effect, the amount committed between 1973 and 1978 for the
program now described as Community Resources Organization (Sec. 36G)
was less than 1.9 million. See Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978, Table 72,
p. 64.

National Housing Policies for an Urban Canada 67

35A particularly significant example would be the study by A. J. Diamond,
“Density, Distribution and Costs” (University of Toronto Centre for Urban
and Community Studies, April 1970, mimeographed) pp. 289.

38QOntario New Homes Warranties Plan Act, 1976, proclaimed by Order-
in-Council 3365-76, in effect from December 31, 1976.

8TAlthough there has been much greater dollar activity under RRAP
since the 1973 amendments, the restriction that borrowers must be residents
of NIP areas was a serious deterrent. In 1976 fewer than forty individual
homes in the City of Toronto were improved with RRAP assistance. (Inter-
view with Director of Community Development, City of Toronto, May 27,
1977).

88Canadian Council on Social Development, Housing Rehabilitation.
Proceedings of a conference held November 1973 (Ottawa: CCSD, Decem-
ber 1974) pp. 27-29, 106-108.

39Between 1973 and 1978, NIP Grants (Section 72.2) amounted to
nearly $202 million and loans (Section 27.5) to more than $64 million.
Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978, Table 72, p. 64.

40"There were no legislative changes to the National Housing Act during
1976.” Canadian Housing Statistics, 1976, Housing Legislation and Policy,
p. xiv.

CHAPTER 5

New Housing Policy Initiatives by
Provincial and Local Governments

The report of the federal Task Force on Housing and Urban
Development and the implementation of some of its important recom-
mendations cast a serious chill over the development of provincial
housing policies at the close of the 1960s. There had been feverish
activity within a number of provinces, particularly in Ontario during
the years 1967-69. I felt that the report of the task force was, in
substantial measure, aimed at the Ontario Housing Corporation and
its rapidly increasing program of governmental housing activity within
Canada’s largest province.! This allegation was not denied by Paul
Hellyer or by officials of CMHC. Rather, the Government of Canada
proceeded to initiate a new Ministry of State for Urban Affairs while
continuing the freeze (originated by Mr. Hellyer) on more than thirty
urban renewal projects across Canada, most of them located within
Ontario.

During the years 1970-72, provincial housing programs were thus
virtually at a standstill as provincial officials attempted to ascertain
and measure the significance of new federal initiatives. On the one
hand, Robert Andras (the first minister) began to release modest funds
to complete work already underway in urban renewal projects; on the
other hand, in the conventional public housing field, the OHC alone
was absorbing nearly 98 per cent of all available federal funds by
1969-70. It was certain that the new provincial housing corporations

76 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

elsewhere in Canada would have a claim on these funds and, unless
the total allocation by the federal government was increased (through
CMHC), the Ontario program would be bound to suffer. At approxi-
mately this time the first initiatives from the Quebec Housing Corpora-
tion were ready and the President of CMHC announced that $150
million would be made available per annum to the QHC without the
necessity of formal approval of each specific program.

This agreement seriously upset the relationships that had been
established between the Ontario Minister of Economics and Develop-
ment (Stanley Randall), the president of CMHC (Herbert Hignett),
and the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Robert Andras). Ontario
felt that, at the very least, it had undertaken its responsibilities since
1964 in strict accordance with federal housing legislation. It had
accepted the necessity to seek approval by the CMHC for every
housing project in the province in which work was undertaken or was
to be undertaken. Within Metro Toronto this involved dozens of
approvals following a multitude of inspections: first, of proposals, plans
and prices; second, of construction; and finally, of the condition of the
particular building or grouping of houses prior to formal take-over by
the OHC. These intergovernmental arrangements were well understood
in Ontario, since they had been initiated in part during the days of the
federal-provincial program at the beginning of the 1950's.

At the very most, what Ontario wanted was the same treatment as
that accorded to Quebec through its agency, the Quebec Housing
Corporation. This meant that the Government of Ontario would seek
a commitment by the CMHC for a block of funds for public housing
purposes (whether for rental by families or senior citizens, or for land
assembly and servicing of land); and block funding not for only one
fiscal year but for three to five years in advance, as was the hope of
the new Minister of Economics and Development, Allan Grossman,
who had been designated by the Premier of Ontario as Minister
responsible for Housing.

This was the climate early in the 1970s as the new amendments to
the NHA began to take shape and as the full impact of major federal
initiatives in housing policy formulation began to be felt. Although
there was considerable irritation, tension and a serious retardation in
the rate of progress towards meeting the needs of low-income families
and elderly persons throughout the country, the major positive effect
was the examination and re-examination of provincial housing policies.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 71

Table I
Statutes for Housing and Planning

FEDERAL
National Housing Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. N-10

as amended by 1973-74, c. 18, 1974-75-76, cc. 38, 82.
ALBERTA

The Alberta Housing Act, R.S.A. 1970, c. 175
amended 1971, c. 46; 1972, c. 51; 1973, c. 54; 1974, c. 34; 1975, Bill 13.

The Municipal Government Act, R.S.A. 1970, c. 246
amended 1971, c. 74.

The Planning Act, R.S.A. 1970, c. 276
amended 1971, c. 84.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

The Housing Act, R.S.B.C. 1960, c. 183.

Department of Housing Act, 1973, ¢. 110.

The Municipal Act, R.S.B.C. 1960, c. 255
amended 1961, cc. 43, 59; 1962, cc. 36, 41; 1963, c. 42; 1964, c. 33;
1965, c. 28; 1966, c. 31; 1967, c. 28; 1968, c. 33; 1969, c. 21; 1970,
c. 29; 1971, c. 38; 1972, c. 36.

MANITOBA

The Housing and Renewal Corporation Act, R.S.M. 1970, c. H160
amended 1970, c. 86; 1971, c. 14.

The Municipal Act, 1970 (Man.), c. 100
amended 1971, cc. 27, 81, 82; 1972, cc. 22, 41, 42.

The Municipal Board Act, R.S.M. 1970, c. M240
amended 1970, c. 92; 1972, c. 81.

The Pianning Act, R.S.M. 1970, c. P80.

The Real Property Act, R.S.M. 1970, c. R30
amended 1970, c. 90; 1971, c. 82; 1972, cc. 37, 82.

NEW BRUNSWICK

The New Brunswick Housing Act, 1967.

The Community Planning Act, 1960-61 (N.B.), c. 6
amended 1963 (2nd Sess.), c. 13; 1964, c. 18; 1965, c. 12; 1966, c. 152;
1968, c. 21; superseded by 1972, c. 7.

The Municipalities Act, 1966 (N.B.), c. 20
amended 1967, c. 56; 1968, c. 41; 1969, c. 58; 1970, c. 37; 1971, c. 50;
1972, c. 49.

72 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)
Table I (continued)

NEWFOUNDLAND

The Housing Act, 1966, S.N., c. 87. An Act to incorporate the Newfound-
land and Labrador Housing Corporation, April 25, 1967, cited as the
Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation Act, R.S.N., 1970,
c. 249.

The Local Government Act 1966 (Nfid.), c. 31
amended 1966-67, c. 15; 1968, c. 19; 1969, c. 37; 1970, c. 33; 1971,
c. 56.

The Urban and Rural Planning Act, 1965 (Nfid.), c. 28
amended 1969, c. 55.
NOVA SCOTIA

The Housing Development Act, R.S.N.S. 1967, c. 129
amended 1969, c. 52; 1970-71, c. 45.

The Home Owner’s Incentive Act, R.S.N.S. 1970-71, ¢. 1.

The Municipal Act, R.S.N.S. 1967, c. 192
amended 1968, c. 41; 1969, cc. 60, 61; 1970, c. 54; 1970-71, c. 52; 1972,
c. 46,

The Planning Act, 1969 (N.S.), c. 16
amended 1970, c. 87; 1970-71, c. 71.

The Towns Act, R.S.N.S. 1967, c. 309
amended 1968, c. 58; 1969, cc. 77, 78; 1970, c. 72; 1970-71, c..59; 1972
¢. 55.

ONTARIO

The Housing Development Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 213;
as amended by 1972, c. 129; 1974, c. 31; 1976, Bill 64.

The Ontario Housing Corporation Act 1964, c. 76;
RS.O., c. 317.

The Ministry of Housing Act, 1973, c. 100;
as amended by 1974, c. 14.

The Municipal Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 284
amended 1971, c. 81 and c. 98, s. 4 Sched. para. 23; 1972, cc. 121, 124,
169.

The Planning Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 349
amended 1971, c. 2; 1972, c. 118.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 73
Table I (continued)

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

The Prince Edward Island Housing Authority Act, 1966;
R.S.P.E. 1974, c. 33; repealed by the Housing Corporation Act, 24 Eliz.
II, 1975, ¢. 14.

The Planning Act, 1968 (P-E.I.), c. 40
amended 1969, c. 35; 1970, c. 38; 1971, c. 30.

The Town Act, R.S.P.E.I. 1951, c. 162
amended 1952, c. 45; 1953, c. 46; 1959, c. 26; 1960, c. 42; 1961, c. 39;
1963, c. 31; 1964, c. 32; 1966, c. 41; 1968, c. 55; 1970, c. 51; 1971, c. 56.

The Village Service Act, 1954 (P.E.1.), c. 39
amended 1956, c. 45; 1957, c. 37; 1959, c. 31; 1960, c. 46; 1961, c. 43;
1962, c. 39; 1963, c. 35; 1964, c. 36; 1965, c. 28; 1966, c. 45; 1968,
c. 60; 1969, c. 51; 1971, ¢. 56,

QUEBEC

The Quebec Housing Corporation Act, (Loi de la Société d'habitation du
Québec) 1966-1967, ¢. 55;
as amended by 1971, c. 56; 1971, c. 57; 1974, c. 49.

The Cities and Towns Act, R.S.Q. 1964, c. 193
amended 1966-67, c. 54; 1968, cc. 17, 53, 54, 55; 1969, cc. 55, 56; 1970,
cc. 46, 47; 1971, c. 55.

The Municipal Code
amended 1963, c. 65, s. 5.
SASKATCHEWAN

The Housing and Urban Renewal Act, 1966,
repealed by the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation Act, 1973, R.S.S.
c. 93.

The Senior Citizens’ Home Repair Assistance Act, 1973, R.S.S., c. 103.

The House Building Assistance Act, 1974, c. 45
repealing the Acts of 1970 and 1972.

The Community Planning Act, R.S.S. 1965, c. 172
amended 1967, c. 92; 1968, c. 12, 1970, c. 9.

The Housing and Urban Renewal Act, 1966 (Sask.), c. 53
amended 1967, c. 30; 1968, c. 31.

The Urban Municipalities Act, 1970 (Sask.), c. 78
amended 1971, c. 63.

Source: I. M. Rogers, Canadian Law of Planning and Zoning (Toronto: Carswell
1973). Amended by the author to include certain additional Housing
Statutes and updated to 1975-76.

74 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

A PERIOD OF PROVINCIAL RE-EXAMINATION:
LEGISLATION AND SOUL-SEARCHING

The provinces were forced to examine the adequacy of their legis-
lation as quickly as possible after 1970 and, if necessary, to amend it
to meet the new conditions occasioned by the policies which Paul
Hellyer had initiated and which the first Minister of State for Urban
Affairs had begun to translate into federal and federal-provincial
programs. A tabulation of governing legislation is presented in Table I
to indicate, first of all, the activity which transpired to bring order out
of near chaos.

A quick glance at this compilation of legislative enactments will
indicate that there were a great many amendments to existing legisla-
tion throughout the country in 1971 and 1972. In the western prov-
inces — with the exception of Saskatchewan which passed legislation in
1973 — the basic legislation received important changes in those years.
In three of the Maritime Provinces there was an entirely new Com-
munity Planning Act, and in Nova Scotia all the basic legislation
governing housing development was amended between 1970 and 1972.
This was also the case in Ontario, and in Quebec with the exception
of its basic municipal code. It is clear that the provinces were attempting
to fit their legislative structure within the new formulations put forward
by a federal government which proposed to play a substantial role in
the future urbanization of a very wealthy, very diverse and thinly
populated nation.

The second major element in this picture of housing policy formula-
tion which took the form of a process of soul-searching, is perhaps
best illustrated by the detailed exposition that follows on the course of
events in Ontario. In defence of this approach it is argued that Ontario
is virtually a major state within the Canadian nation. So much attention
has been paid to the cultural differences and aspirations of the people
of Quebec that the concept of two nations — Canada on the one hand
and Quebec on the other — has restricted the thinking of most people.
Ontario’s place in the nation has tended to be based more on the fact
that most of its population is English-speaking rather than a recognition
of its own special significance.

Ontario had a population of more than eight million persons in the
late 1970s, approximately equal to that of Sweden and close to the
total combined populations of Norway and Denmark. This province is
by far the wealthiest in the country in terms of total physical product
and the gross provincial product measured in dollars. Per capita income
is above that of any other province;? the rate of unemployment until
recent years has been below that in any other province; and, while the
labour force has expanded substantially as a result of natural growth

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 75

and immigration, total employment has expanded more or less in the
same proportion. In short, Ontario is a nation-state with vast resources
and with far less dependence on one type of resource than any other
province in Canada. The reference to the Scandinavian countries was
deliberate to indicate that the standard of living in Ontario is of the
same order as that of major Scandinavian countries purporting to
maintain the highest living standards in the world and which have
developed tremendously imaginative and effective housing policies.

The situation that developed in Ontario from 1971 through 1974
constitutes one model of progression towards the evolution of appro-
priate housing policies. It is not so clear that the same route was
followed formally in any other province, but it would appear from
legislative changes and from the statistical data available that, at least
in certain formal and informal ways, the same set of procedures was
followed in what I have called the process of “soul-searching”. In
Ontario this process occurred in the following apparent sequential
progression.

1. In November 1972 the Premier of Ontario, William Davis,
appointed an Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy chaired
by Professor Eli Comay, Faculty of Environmental Studies at
York University (formerly the Commissioner of Planning for
the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto). The task force sub-
mitted its report and several supporting monographs, as well as
a variety of commissioned studies, on July 27, 1973.

2. The Government of Ontario created a Ministry of Housing
through the passage of the Ministry of Housing Act on October
25, 1973. Premier Davis appointed Robert Welch, formerly the
Policy Minister for Social Development, as the first Minister of
Housing in Ontario.

3. The Ministry of Housing issued Housing Ontario ’74 described
as “an initial statement of policies, programs, and partnerships.”

The report of the Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy proposed
not only the creation of a Ministry of Housing but, further, that the
Government of Ontario should de-centralize the administration and
management of housing programs whenever a municipality felt capable
of undertaking these responsibilities. The major documentation required
to demonstrate such capacity was the development of a local, municipal,
or regional housing policy. Early in 1974 the City of Toronto issued
a study entitled, Living Room,* which purported to be the city’s
statement of housing policies and capabilities to undertake its respon-
sibilities, not only in the management but in the development of a
housing program. The Ministry of Housing apparently recognized the
city’s capability; in late spring, 1974 the City of Toronto created its
first Department of Housing and appointed a Commissioner of Housing

716 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

with the same status as that of other major departmental heads.

In May 1974 the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto issued an
Interim Metro Housing Policy in draft form and described it in two
parts as a housing policy suitable for the entire metropolitan area of
Toronto with its two-and-a-half million inhabitants. The potential con-
flict in housing policies between the constituent municipalities in the
lower tier of the two-tier regional government and the upper tier, as
represented by the Metropolitan Council in Toronto, had not yet been
resolved in the late 1970s.

An examination of the major documents produced in Ontario during
the years 1973-1977 constitutes one appropriate way of presenting the
evolution of provincial and local housing policies.» The wealth of
documentation is not available for any other province, yet the manner
in which the progression has occurred is likely to be repeated in many
other jurisdictions in our country.

PROVINCIAL INITIATIVES OUTSIDE ONTARIO

Since 1968, when the Canadian Conference on Housing included
representatives from eight housing corporations, the two provinces
which were lacking such administrative devices have developed new or
stronger administrative organizations. The Saskatchewan Housing
Corporation was created in March 1973 and the British Columbia
Housing Management Commission in December 1967; but the latter
was relatively inactive until amendments were made to the British
Columbia Housing Act 1960. These amendments took effect in June
1970 and made it possible to undertake a variety of new programs in
the mid-1970s.

All ten provinces are now identical, at least in terms of the apparent
superstructure governing the development of housing policies and the
implementation of housing programs within the respective provinces.
This is not surprising in view of the fact that all must perforce operate
within the umbrella of the National Housing Act and must seek the
substantial financial resources available through the federal legislation,
particularly since the amendments of 1973 and 1975.

Nevertheless, the essential data released by the CMHC indicate that
there has been a substantial reduction in the activity of most provincial
governments as far as housing for low-income groups is concerned.
Table II indicates first of all that 1970 was the banner year for financial
assistance to low-income groups from the federal agency through the
provincial organizations during the decade 1965-1974. This tabulation,
drawn from data in Canadian Housing Statistics, previously entitled,
“Aids to Low Income Groups”, was retitled in the 1976 edition. The

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 77

Table I
Housing Assistance Programmes (by type of dwelling) 1969-78 Canada
Single- Multiple-
Detached Dwelling
Period Dwellings Structures Total
1969 1,348 27,450 28,798
1970 1,803 52,533 54,336
1971 5,354 41,212 46,566
1972 5,701 29,819 35,520
1973 5,366 24,484 29,850
1974 9,008 25,004 34,012
1975 17,643 61,857 79,500
1976 22,192 68,428 90,620
1977 17,414 85,899 103,313
1978 9,048 38,728 47,776

substantial increase in the figures commencing 1975 is due to the
inclusion of activity under Section 6 of the NHA whereby approved
lenders may make insured loans. This recent substantial statistical
change is primarily a reflection of increased activity in condominium
apartment structures. In my opinion, inclusion of the data for Section 6
seriously weakens the phrase “housing assistance programs”.

Similarly, the data for Table III are not entirely comparable because
of the aforementioned inclusion of Section 6 data in 1974 and there-
after. It would appear that there was a substantial recovery in every
province and for the nation as a whole after 1973. Most of the new
dwelling units, however, were not for rent to low-income groups in
traditional public housing programs; rather they were for sale to
families in the lower half of the middle income group (“families of
modest or moderate income”). It is important not to be deceived by
statistical tables which indicate a three-fold increase in the number
of dwelling units produced in Canada under “Housing Assistance
Programs”,

This table indicates that the major reason for the downturn in the
production of public housing for low-income groups prior to 1974 lay
in the trend away from multiple dwellings, particularly in the provinces
of Quebec and Ontario. There had been an important increase in the
production of single detached homes, but a fourfold increase from
1969 to 1973 did not compensate for a more than 60 per cent drop-off
in multiple dwellings from 1970 through 1973. For Canada as a whole,
housing for low-income groups dropped by about 50 per cent during
these four years. This is significant evidence of the critical problems
which faced those individuals and families who fell in the lowest third
of the income distribution.

Table TI

CMHC aids to Low-Income Groups’ (number of dwelling units by provinces and types of dwellings)

Single- Multiple- Single- Multiple- Single- Multiple-

Detached Dwelling Detached Dwelling Detached Dwelling
Province Dwellings Structures Total Dwellings Structures Total Dwellings Structures Total

: 1971 1972 1973

Nfid. 142 345 487 109 106 215 199 450 649
PEL. 91 352 143 158 118 276 96 49 145
NSS. 1,083 1,761 2,844 761 1,753 2,514 610 1,266 1,876
N.B. 396 509 905 273 710 983 188 273 461
Que. 1,694 14,110 15,804 1,927 5,602 7,529 2,802 2,049 4,851
Ont. 60 15,208 15,268 169 12,187 12,356 366 11,105 11,471
Man. 380 4,252 4,632 398 2,451 2,849 344 876 1,220
Sask. 1,116 343 1,459 1,550 753 2,303 1,068 499 1,567
Alta. 420 2,663 3,083 441 1,952 2,393 358 1,671 2,029
B.C. 102 2,567 2,669 225 2,414 2,639 551 2,896 3,447
CANADA* 5,524 41,846 47,370 6,102 28,102 34,204 6,638 21,293 27,931

*Includes Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Source: CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1973
(Ottawa, March 1974) Table 51, p. 44.

(O86I-S§61) Sa1oyeg Suisnoy upippudd SL

Table III (continued)

Single- Multiple- Single- Multiple- Single- Multiple-

Detached Dwelling Detached Dwelling Detached Dwelling
Province Dwellings Structures Total Dwellings Structures Total Dwellings Structures Total

1974 1975 1976

Nfld. 921 831 1,752 480 1,333 1,813 764 1,536 2,300
PEL 166 232 398 283 109 392 223 11 234
N.S. 1,307 988 2,295 1,616 1,941 3,557 1,131 954 2,085
N.B. 608 1,226 1,834 1,020 1,494 2,514 1,520 849 2,369
Que. 5,378 4,321 9,699 9,132 15,346 24,478 10,924 14,782 25,706
Ont. 2,744 11,366 14,110 1,374 24,513 25,887 1,841 27,542 29,383
Man. 747 1,229 1,976 651 4,807 5,458 534 3,756 4,290
Sask. 1,271 1,230 2,501 1,453 2,256 3,709 1,687 4,199 5,886
Alta. 369 1,579 1,948 204 3,026 3,230 169 3,874 4,043
B.C. 1,618 4,896 6,514 1,371 6,606 7,977 3,239 9,255 12,494
CANADA* = 15,180 28,015 43,195 17,933 61,623 79,556 22,304 67,009 89,313

*Includes Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Source: CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978
(Ottawa, March 1977) Table 52, p. 46.

SUBUUULAAOD 1090] puv jo1duidosg Kq SaANoUy MaN

Province

Nfld.
PEL
N.S.
N.B.
Que.
Ont.
Man.
Sask.
Alta.
B.C.
CANADA*

Single-
Detached
Dwellings

678
171
1,127
874
5,976
1,724
546
2,467
545
3,254
17,636

Multiple-
Dwelling
Structures

1977

1,185
192
3,322
633
16,366
35,289
5,711
3,531
9,225
11,693
87,420

*Includes Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Source: CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978
(Ottawa: March 1979) Table 57, p. 51.

Table III (continued)

Total

1,863
363
4,449
1,507
22,342
37,013
6,257
5,998
9,770
14,947
105,056

Single-
Detached
Dwellings

447
119
786
683

2,678

1,445
424

1,224
219

1,481

9,621

Mutltiple-
Dwelling
Structures

1978

456
301
1,048
564
7,142
21,099
3,046
1,635
2,696
1,741
40,117

Total

903
420
1,834
1,247
9,820
22,544
3,470
2,859
3,188
3,222
49,738

(O86I-SE6T) Sa12NOg Buisnoy uvipouvd = 98

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 81

Table IH presents a more detailed breakdown revealing that between
1972 and 1973 total dwelling units declined in all provinces except
Newfoundland and British Columbia. It may be concluded that the
new corporation in British Columbia and the allocation of substantial
resources by a new government elected in 1972 made the difference.
In most provinces the decline was substantial. In Quebec it was more
than one-third; in Ontario it was approximately 7 to 8 per cent.

In almost every respect the years 1971-73 revealed a substantial
decline by comparison with 1969 and 1970. The reasons for this
downturn at a time when total housing production throughout Canada
rose dramatically were provided earlier. The confusion after 1969 -
the creation of the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs and the indecision
of the successive ministers and their senior officials after 1970-71, the
use of housing as a factor in curtailing the progress of inflation in the
years 1969-71 — combined to worsen drastically the housing situation
of low-income groups in our country.

The data for the years 1974-77 indicate a substantial increase in
governmental activity. The title of the relevant Table was changed,
however, from “CMHC Aids to Low-Income Groups” to “NHA
Activity for New and Existing Housing”. These statistical manipulations
seem to be based upon the notion that the federal government desired
full statistical recognition for all its interventions in the housing market.
If this is an accurate presumption it must have been embarrassing to
discover that the number of units assisted dropped from more than
105,000 in 1977 to less than 50,000 in 1978 (a decline of 52.6 per
cent). These facts presaged a crisis which deepened in 1979 and has
become intolerable in the early 1980s.

A reading of the annual reports and other material published by the
various provinces in recent years does, nevertheless, support the view
that they were concerned with the plight of low-income families and
individuals, and particularly with the needs of older people. The
following description of activity within the several provinces is pre-
sented in geographical order by province, from west to east.

British Columbia

Governmental housing activity in British Columbia took a form
unique among the provinces. Although a B.C. Housing Management
Commission had been created at the end of 1967, its only responsibility
was to operate and administer existing federal-provincial public housing
projects. The two local housing authorities, the Vancouver Housing
Authority and the Prince Rupert Housing Authority, were disbanded.
The government of Premier W. A. C. Bennett was cautious in its

82 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

expansion of the public housing stock and clearly was opposed to the
concepts underlying public intervention in the housing market. With
the election of a new government in 1972, a number of significant
changes occurred.

A Department of Housing (rather than a ministry) was created on
November 15th, 1973. On January 10th, 1974 the Department acquired
a private housing construction company, known as Dunhill Develop-
ment Corporation Limited, “to expedite matters.”® Dunhill was
described as “a British Columbia company with an excellent reputation
in the building development and construction field.”® The B.C. Housing
Management Commission was reconstituted with “a fresh mandate”.

Thus, for the first time in the history of British Columbia, the pro-
vincial government assumed a meaningful responsibility for the
provision of adequate and reasonably-priced housing for residents of
the province.!?

The Housing Management Commission planned an entirely new
approach to its responsibilities in January 1975. It dispatched a letter
to all public housing tenants, indicating that a new rent-to-income scale
had been created for the purpose of changing the image of public
housing. On January 13th, 1975 it introduced a rent supplement pro-
gram which, it stated, had among its basic objectives the integration of
persons and families in different income ranges, “normalization” of
public housing programs in the community, housing alternatives for
low-income groups and, hopefully, public acceptance of governmental
activity. In the late months of 1974 there was considerable correspond-
ence on this subject between the “Minister of Housing” in Victoria
and the Minister of State for Urban Affairs in Ottawa. On August 9th
of that year, Lorne Nicolson declared in a letter to Barnett Danson,

The program is designed to cover a much broader social mix,. per-
mitting projects to become better integrated (without stigma) into the
surrounding community. It will replace the existing public housing
rent scale in British Columbia and will also be applicable by agreement
with CMHC to co-operative and non-profit housing developments.11

Senior citizen housing had not previously been covered in British
Coumbia by a rent-geared-to-income scale so the rents of single elderly
persons were to be reduced and the rents for elderly couples were to
be increased, although a number of allowable income exemptions were
reported.

The federal minister responded with approval and indicated that
provincial governments may deviate from the “federal rent-to-income
scale” so that local conditions and needs can be better met. He

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 83

stipulated, however, that the federal share of subsidies shall be based
on the lesser amount resulting from the application of the “federal and
provincial rental scales”.!2 Mr. Danson wrote again on June 30th,
1975 to indicate that agreement had been reached between the Govern-
ment of Canada and the Government of British Columbia concerning
the social and income mix for public housing in the province. His
statement is an important affirmation of policy which presumably
applied to all provinces.

Within a Section 43 NHA project, 95 per cent of the units would be
reserved for low income families as defined in the National Housing
Act (50 per cent of those in greatest need from the lower third of
incomes within a market area and 35 per cent of those in greatest
need from an income range above the lowest third to a level where
25 per cent of the income equates with current market rents for new
comparable accommodation).

An allocation of 5 per cent may be made to families of higher
income, at market rents.1?

The first annual report of the Department of Housing and the 1974
Dunhill Corporation annual report were equally optimistic. The
department stated that “by the end of 1974 the provincial housing
ministry, with all its housing and mortgage programs, was involved in
financing over two-thirds of the housing starts in British Columbia, in
one way or another.”!+ Dunhill reported that by the end of 1974 the
total number of dwelling units completed, in progress or planned was
2,984.

A residential land lease program was promised under a new Lease-
hold and Conversion Mortgage Loan Act. British Columbia was
involved in a reduced interest rate program (which preceded the federal
AHOP Program) whereby interest could be reduced to as little as
5 per cent by way of a so-called free loan.1® During its first year of
operation the Department of Housing was involved in 258 projects of
varying types and sizes.1* The public housing rental stock showed a
substantial increase with about 1,400 new units for a total of 6,200
under management in mid-1975. The expectation was a stock of 10,000
units by mid-1976.

With the defeat of Premier David Barrett and the New Democratic
Party late in 1975, a good deal of the apparent staff enthusiasm dis-
appeared. A major study of housing problems in the province prepared
by Karl Jaffary for the previous government was shelved.!* The senior
staff person of the B.C. Housing Management Commission was dis-
missed. Responsibility was assigned to the new Minister of Housing
and Municipal Affairs. Reports for 1976 from the Department and
from Dunhill were not available late in 1977. Thus it can be con-

84 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

jectured that British Columbia, like other provinces had dampened its
enthusiasm for direct public housing activity and turned its attention
to new programs designed to facilitate home ownership for moderate
income families. This conjecture is strengthened by the data presented
earlier in Table III.

Alberta

Amendments to the Alberta Housing Act at the beginning of the
1970s affirmed continuation of the Alberta Housing and Urban
Renewal Corporation as a corporation with the name, Alberta Housing
Corporation. In the 1973 annual report of the AHC three aspects of
the overall situation were emphasized. Alberta was the first province
to sign an agreement with the federal government for implementation
of the Neighbourhood Improvement Program. Housing for senior
citizens received emphasis with almost 1,000 self-contained units
approved for construction in 1973. The corporation was also respon-
sible for elderly persons’ housing in “lodges”, which have character-
istics of both homes for the aged and nursing homes. In the year-end
review 392 beds were approved. Finally, the report emphasized that
340 public housing units (family housing) were already under con-
struction or planned for 1974.1°

An examination of housing programs in Alberta reveals the full
galaxy of such programs available through federal-provincial co-
operation, with two unique additions to such a list. The customary
array was described as: Public Housing, Federal NIP, Staff Housing
Program, Rural and Native Housing Program, Land Assembly and
Development, Direct Lending Program, Senior Citizens Housing,
Federal Assisted Home-Ownership Program, and Métis Housing Pro-
gram. Housing for certain staff members of government who must live
in remote areas and a Self-Help Métis Housing Program appear to be
unique, although it is not clear whether the latter falls within the Rural
and Native Housing Program (National Housing Act, Section 40.1).

The results of this apparent activity were described in a review
entitled, a “Fifteen Month Review and Financial Statement” which
covered the period January 1974 to March 31, 1975. By the time this
report was made public early in 1976 the Alberta Housing Corporation
had been reorganized, following a study by management consultants,
whereby AHC was decentralized into separate north and south regions,
each headed by a vice-president. The chief operating officer of the
corporation is termed the President, responsible to the Minister of
Municipal Affairs who is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
corporation.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 85

In the fifteen month period, 1,078 self-contained units and 856 beds
in lodge accommodation were approved under the Senior Citizens
Housing Program. An additional 209 public housing units were ap-
proved and assistance was granted for 146 homes for Métis. Under
the Direct Lending Program 2,470 loans were approved for the con-
struction of 2,646 dwelling units. Within the Corporation’s Land
Assembly and Development Program, eighteen land banks and/or land
development projects had been devised to assist municipalities. More-
over, the new NIP Program was underway in six cities and three
districts.19

It is interesting to note that within this province, subsidiaries are
divided on the following basis: federal 50 per cent, provincial 40 per
cent and municipal 10 per cent. In Ontario the division is on a 50 ~
421% - 7% basis.

Saskatchewan

Administration and control of all property acquired under the
Housing and Urban Renewal Act, 1966, were transferred to the new
Saskatchewan Housing Corporation in 1973. In its first annual report
covering the period March 16 to December 31, 1973, the SHC care-
fully separated its powers to assist low-income families and individuals
from its powers to help social assistance recipients.*°

During its initial year the corporation placed priority upon public
rental housing for low-income families and senior citizens, “with parti-
cular emphasis on the housing needs of the latter”.?! Construction of
an additional 1,100 public housing units was approved during 1973.
The total stock under administration at December 31, 1973 was 2,048
units composed of 1,457 for families and 591 for senior citizens. The
report stated that five new programs had been developed in that first
year: Senior Citizens Housing Repair Assistance Program, Residential
Rehabilitation Program, Direct Lending Program, Non-Profit Program,
and Subsidy and Self-Help Program.

A year later the corporation reported that its internal administration
had become departmentalized as follows: Loans and Grants, Finance
and Administration, Municipal Programs, and Research and Informa-
tion. The first annual agreement under NIP had been signed and
participation of twelve municipalities had been approved.?? A great
increase in public housing and housing activity generally, was claimed.
In 1974 construction began on 519 units, with 570 dwellings actually
completed. The total inventory in public housing was 2,578 dwelling
units at December 31, 1974.28

86 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

In Saskatchewan both capital funding and subsidies were distributed
on the following basis: federal 75 per cent, provincial 20 per cent and
municipal 5 per cent. This distribution implies that the corporation was
utilizing Section 40.2 of the National Housing Act rather than Section
43 which was normally favoured by the provincial corporations.

It is evident that in the mid-1970s the SHC emphasized promotion
of the federal AHOP Program. In a special publication describing the
program in June 1975, it emphasized that the province had agreed to

’ offer subsidies over the then CMHC maximum of $600 per purchaser.
The SHC noted that it would increase these subsidies by up to $628
per year, thus reducing the annual income requirement to $6,787 if
families were willing to pay up to 27 per cent of gross income for a
home, the price of which did not exceed $31,000 in Regina ($30,000
in Saskatoon).

Manitoba

In February 1976 the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation
issued its eighth annual report since its incorporation in 1967.%4 It
emphasized that new programs introduced in 1974 included NIP and
the Rural and Native Housing Program. In addition, assistance was
made available to first-time home buyers in the form of both grant and
mortgage subsidies.”

Six main avenues of operation were recorded by the MHRC: Land
Assembly, Rental Programs, Purchase Programs, Renewal Programs,
Research, and New Towns. By the end of 1975 the corporation had
land banked 4,717 acres including 3,554 in the Winnipeg area.?* Under
the Elderly and Infirm Persons Housing Act, capital grants had made
low rents possible; the current inventory at December 31, 1975 was
2,666 dwelling units. It is noteworthy that, in its annual report, the
corporation admitted that it had entered rent supplement programs in
both Winnipeg and northern Manitoba because of waiting lists of one
to two years’ duration for public housing accommodation.

The Manitoba corporation appeared from its reports to be active in
all facets of its “main avenues of operation.” It had purchased housing
in the Rural and Native Housing Program; it had assisted Continuing
Housing Co-operatives on leased land; it had been involved in AHOP
since January 1974; and, with the first NIP agreement signed in 1974
it was involved in that program as well as RRAP.?"

The statistical results of this substantial activity are impressive. At
the close of 1975 the number of dwelling units committed were: in
Family Public Housing, 4,945, including 2,037 in Winnipeg; in Elderly
Persons Public Housing, 5,687, including 3,857 in Winnipeg; in Rural

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 87

and Native Housing, 922; and, in Elderly and Infirm Persons Housing
2,666, including 1,578 in Winnipeg. Manitoba’s record in a variety of
housing assistance programs, with particular emphasis upon public
housing, is all the more impressive when its population of just over
1 million persons is considered.2? Moreover, the province initiated two
unique experimental structures designed to accommodate handicapped
persons. The public housing project named Ten Ten Sinclair in
Winnipeg is designed to accommodate people confined to wheelchairs.
It was opened in October 1975 and contained 75 one-bedroom suites.
The Manitoba Housing-Kiwanis Centre of the Deaf is a six-storey,
200 unit building opened in January 1976.

Prior to 1969, funding of public housing for both capital and
subsidies was on the basis of the following distribution: federal 75 per
cent, provincial 12% per cent, and municipal 12% per cent. This was
changed in that year to 90 per cent federally funded and 10 per cent
provincially funded (NHA, S. 43), with the municipalities making no
contribution to either capital or operating costs. There were, however,
ninety local housing authorities with municipal representation at the
close of 1975.

Quebec

The Quebec Housing Corporation Act 1967/67 was amended in both
1971 and 1974. An annual report covering the years 1972-73 was
issued by the QHC in April 1974. Although Quebec was by that time
involved in many facets of governmental intervention in the housing
market, the statistical results were not impressive.

In the previously presented tables?®? of NHA activity for new and
existing housing, it was clear that the number of units listed under the
heading “Aids to Low-Income Groups” declined significantly in the
province from 15,804 in 1971 to 6,888 in 1973 before a statistical
recovery occurred in the ensuing years by virtue of the inclusion of
the activity under the NHA, Section 6.

In a more detailed breakdown of housing assistance programs under
the National Housing Act covering the entire post-war period, 1946-
1976, the most salient data revealed that Quebec was second to Ontario
in every aspect of social housing activity. As the second most populous
province this should perhaps have been the case but in terms of
activity per thousand of population, Quebec did not keep pace. Table TV
presents some of the significant statistics.

The Quebec government was clearly not pleased with this record
and commissioned a Task Force which submitted a report in January
1976.39 Report on Housing in Quebec consisted of an analysis of the

88 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Table IV

Housing Assistance Programs Under the National Housing Act, Canada
Quebec and Ontario (1946-1976)

Total Housing Activity*

New Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Existing Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Entrepreneurial Activity Under Section 15
(Limited Dividend)

New Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Existing Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Loans and Contributions to Non-Profit Corporations
and Continuing Co-operatives

Loans for New Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Loans for Existing Housing
Number of Loans
Number of Units
Hostel Beds

Federal-Provincial Rental Housing Projects
Under Section 40 (75% to 25% Basis)
New Housing

Number of Projects

Number of Units

Existing Housing
Number of Projects
Number of Units

Quebec

40,417

119,483

32,366

2,154
4,912
2,833

239
27,941
47

163
1,747
18

247
6,692
16,268

37
380
2,438

796

Ontario

32,661
179,157
35,231

3,646
11,287
2,815

371
40,754
527

165

144
7,875
5,538

466
1,768
1,530

82
6,599

436

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 89
Table IV (continued)

Loans for Public Housing Projects Under Section 43

(90% to 10% Basis) Quebec Ontario
New Housing
Number of Loans 397 1,077
Number of Units 23,852 77,906
Hostel Beds 174 732
Existing Housing
Number of Loans 12 54
Number of Units 380 5,215
Hostel Beds ~ -

Loans by CMHC Under Assisted Home Ownership and
Rental Programs, NHA, 1973-1976

Assisted Home Ownership Program (AHOP)
Number of Loans 434 85
Number of Units 434 85

Assisted Rental Program
Number of Loans 1
Number of Units 8 17

*Includes activities under the following Sections of the National Housing Act:
Loans to Entrepreneurs and Non-Profit Corporations (Sections 15 and 15.1),
Public Housing (Section 43), Student Housing (Section 47), Assisted Home-
Ownership Programmes (Sections 34.15, 58 and 59), Co-operative Housing
(Section 34.18), Federal-Provincial Rental and Sales Housing Projects (Section
40), and Loans by Approved Lenders (Section 6). All sub-sections in Table TV
are included within the grand total of housing activity.

Source: CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics 1976, Tables 53-58, pp. 47-51.

housing situation in general and offered a proposal to the government
for a general housing policy. It proposed that 300,000 homes be con-
structed in five years, that an additional 360,000 homes be restored
and repaired within ten years and that 30,000 acres of land “be made
suitable” (serviced) within five years.**

The report concluded that the market mechanisms as well as the
existing governmental programs function well in the case of single-
family dwellings (presumably for sale), but the operation had suffered
from a shortage of tenement homes at low prices (rentals) throughout
the entire province. The Task Force attributed this shortage to several
factors: increase of needs, deterioration of existing housing and the
slowing down of construction. It emphasized that the gap is widening
between the ability to pay for a reasonable standard of living and the

90 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

rising cost of new houses. Construction costs increased 100 per cent
between 1972 and 1975 while the rate of interest rose from 9 to 12
per cent.

The task force stated that in 1975-76 the Government of Quebec
was spending about $32 million for programs of the Quebec Housing
Corporation and $28 million for industrial development, water and
sewerage. It affirmed that a realistic budget would include, approxi-
mately, $42 million for new programs and $38 million for renovation
(rehabilitation) 3?

New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Housing Corporation issued an annual report
in mid-1975 covering the fiscal year 1974. By March 31, 1975, 2,920
dwelling units were under administration and 532 were at varying
stages of construction in 35 municipalities. It should be noted that the
population of the province was 675,000 in that year. The development
program of the corporation was concentrated on the housing needs of
the elderly and emphasized the completion and occupation of the first
senior citizens’ developments in Bathurst and Fredericton and the first
senior citizens’ hostel project. Within the previous two years the
corporation had designated 356 senior citizen units for low-income
residents who required supplementation by virtue of their inability to
obtain “decent housing in the private sector.”

Particular emphasis was placed upon the renovation of older pro-
jects. In this connection, New Brunswick had embarked upon a unique
activity in which social assistance recipients participated in a work
activity program to upgrade public properties. While interesting, this
development has roots within the original poor law philosophy which
has dominated social development in the Atlantic provinces since the
18th century. The report made clear the linkage between the needs of
persons in poverty for a variety of social services and their requirements
for decent housing.

While social development has been traditionally relegated to a sub-
ordinate role, the Corporation recognizes a need for an expanding
social delivery service and negotiations are continuing with other
governmental and private service agencies.34

In none of the recent annual reports of other provincial corporations
is the linkage between social services and housing accommodation so
clearly delineated. In most provinces the housing authorities are careful
to separate these two fundamental requirements.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 91

In New Brunswick the corporation’s development division described a
“very active land banking program” as a major function. It emphasized
that public housing units fell in the fiscal year 1974 to 176 starts
compared to 387 in the fiscal year 1973 “due to tendered construction
costs of public housing units extending to inaccessible levels” (sic)*>
On March 31, 1975, the New Brunswick Housing Corporation was
administrating 2,108 completed and occupied units (1,235 for families
and 873 for senior citizens), together with 127 rental supplement units
(81 for families and 46 for senior citizens), plus the original federal-
provincial family units in St. John and Moncton, numbering 685 — a
total of 2,920. At that time, only ten additional family units were
under construction, whereas 212 senior citizen units and 310 rent
supplement units for senior citizens were under construction.** As in
several other provinces, the emphasis has shifted from accommodation
for families to housing for senior citizens.

The province issued a mimeographed, undated document (probably
in 1975) entitled, Housing Programs in New Brunswick. This document
was designed to distinguish newly emerging provincial programs, includ-
ing assistance to individuals for home improvements and mortgage
assistance for new construction, from new federal-provincial programs,
including AHOP, the Rural and Native Housing Program, and the
Co-operative Housing Program. In the AHOP Program New Brunswick
was prepared to supplement the federal grant by $300 per annum and
in certain special cases, by as much as $500. Seventy units of new
construction were planned for 1975. Under the Rural and Native
Housing Program the province had approved 400 grants in 1975,
either for rehabilitation or for new construction. Co-operative housing
activity was underway in four cities with 400 dwellings planned in
1975.

Nova Scotia

The Nova Scotia Housing Commission in the annual report for the
1973 fiscal year emphasized that it had introduced an interim form of
Assisted Home Ownership under the NHA amendments of 1972 and
1973. The province was prepared to add a provincial grant to the
federal assistance to reduce the required family income to as little as
$5,000 per annum.?"

Construction had been started during the period under review on
an additional 533 dwellings for senior citizens in 25 communities. By
contrast, a mere 158 houses for families were commenced in six
communities. At the end of fiscal 1973 the local housing authorities
in the province had approximately 3,800 dwelling units under manage-

92 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

ment.?8 The commission revealed that it would embark upon a survey
of the external conditions of all residential buildings in communities
with a population of 2,000 persons or more.*?

A year later the annual report for fiscal 1974 highlighted five major
events. It reported a new enabling agreement had been reached with
CMHC io enable co-operative housing companies to operate with
increasing mortgage amounts and subsidies. At the same time the
province signed its first agreement under the Neighbourhood Improve-
ment Program.*® By the end of the fiscal year the cities of Halifax,
Dartmouth and Sydney had renewal programs for implementation
under NIP.*#

In the public housing field 572 starts were recorded for senior
citizens’ housing in 21 communities, nine of which were embarking
upon their first such construction, but the Low Rental Family Housing
Program was in serious difficulties.

The government moratorium on this program continued in effect with
the result that only 216 starts were made during the year on projects
approved prior to the imposition of the moratorium.

The government’s decision to suspend the development of public rental
housing for families was based upon substantial increases in the cost of
construction. The provincial government felt that the subsidies con-
sequent upon such costs over the fifty-year mortgage term would be
significant. At the same time, the demand for such housing continued
to increase because of rising costs in the private housing market.**

The commission had signed a new agreement with the federal
government under the AHOP Program. At that time the federal sub-
sidy was $300 per annum (later increased to $600 and in 1976 to
$750 per annum). Thus, the provincial subsidy was then set at an
additional $300 per annum. Higher maximum mortgage limits were
set for co-operative builders and 795 units of co-operative housing were
approved in fiscal 1974.

Nova Scotia continued to place emphasis upon its Land Development
Program. In the year under review, 553 lots were released with an
additional 179 anticipated later in 1975. The commission reported
considerable land assembly activity.**

Prince Edward Island

Canada’s smallest province (1976 population: 120,000) reported
enthusiastically that fiscal 1973 had been a year of housing activity
with starts at a record pace. The Prince Edward Island Housing

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 93

Authority emphasized substantial activity for senior citizens’ housing,
home improvement, social housing and home ownership - yet it
cautioned that the year under review was one in which the cost of
building or repairing homes increased dramatically. Moreover, it was
a year in which the amount of inexpensive serviced land grew even more
scarce. *5

The province’s own Home Ownership Assistance Program had a
direct input into 40 per cent of the housing starts during fiscal 1973.46
During the year the new federal AHOP Program was accepted and
applicants were directed to available federal assistance wherever ap-
propriate. The Authority reported that in fiscal 1974 it expected to
sign agreements respecting NIP and RRAP.

P.EI. maintained a Home Improvement Assistance Program which
was associated closely with a social rehabilitation housing program
undertaken in co-operation with the Department of Social Services of
the province. This unique program made available up to $4,000
assistance per dwelling for the rehabilitation of residences belonging to
welfare recipients.‘”

The annual report of the P.E.I. Authority is far more detailed than
those of most other provinces and clearly reflects the pride of a small
province in its extensive involvement in federal-provincial housing
programs. The roster of program areas included eight distinct sections
reflecting a considerable effort on the part of a small population with
few resources but with significant housing problems.**

At the close of fiscal 1973 Prince Edward Island had completed 409
senior citizens’ units in 26 locations. The annual report stated that “the
409 units gave P.E.I. 32.3 senior citizens’ dwelling units per thousand
persons 65 years of age or over. This figure compares favourably with
the 1971 Canadian average of 13.7.”

In the field of public family housing the figures are not nearly so
impressive. Rent-to-income housing operated by voluntary local hous-
ing authorities was originally created under the NHA, Section 40, on
the basis (for both capital and subsidies) of the following distribution:
federal 75 per cent, provincial 124 per cent, and municipal 1214 per
cent. For fiscal 1973 the province took over the municipal share.
Nevertheless, just 16 family dwellings were completed that year and at
March 31, 1974 only 90 family housing units were under administration
in the entire province. In mid-1975 a mimeographed report was issued
by the re-named Prince Edward Island Housing Corporation.®° The
annual report of the authority for fiscal 1974 was issued about the
same time.

The new document of mid-1975 was a comprehensive review of all
programs within the province under four major headings: Home
Ownership and Home Construction, describing the Co-Operative

94 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Housing Program, the Social Housing Program, and the Rural Poor
and Native Housing Program.>1 The second major heading entitled,
Home Rehabilitation, described the social rehabilitation program and
tural home rehabilitation program. The third category was rental
accommodation, including senior citizens’ housing, homes for special
care and family or public housing. Finally, the document contained a
description of municipal and land programs, including the Neighbour-
hood Improvement Program and a land assembly and development
program.

The difficulty with the provision of rental housing for families was
further re-inforced when it became clear that no new dwellings were
constructed in fiscal 1974. The report stated,

As with all our deep subsidy programs, the Housing Authority is giving
careful consideration to the financial costs of the Family Housing
Program. Rapidly rising construction and maintenance costs, together
with other demands being placed on provincial funds, make a re-
assessment of the program a necessity. In many cases, home ownership
programs such as AHOP and Co-operatives, may provide a more
effective and acceptable housing alternative to low-income families.52

Newfoundland

The Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation carries out
its responsibilities for the operation and management of subsidized
rental housing through the St. John’s Housing Authority, Corner Brook
Housing Corporation and three direct management offices. The cor-
poration designs and builds the housing with loans through the
appropriate Sections of the National Housing Act, but operating losses
are shared equally with the federal government; there is no municipal
contribution.

In documents issued in the early-1970s, the corporation listed nine
separate programs, the first of which is the aforementioned Subsidized
Rental Housing. In addition, a program, entitled, “Housing for Needy
Individuals”, is under direct management in cooperation with the
provincial Department of Social Services. This latter program is akin
to others in the Atlantic provinces but is not found in the programs
operated from British Columbia to Ontario.

A program, entitled, “Rental Housing — General” is akin to the
staff housing program in the province of Alberta. In Newfoundland,
the corporation builds or acquires housing for rental to support indus-
trial development and to house government employees, particularly
members of essential professions such as doctors, dentists and welfare
officers.53

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 95

Land banking and land assembly are emphasized by the corporation
which, with the assistance of the relevant Sections of the NHA, will
make loans to municipalities for land development, repayable over
three to five years. The corporation is also involved in the development
of so-called industrial parks, using both provincial funding and assist-
ance from the federal Department of Regional Economic Expansion.

Newfoundland entered into its first agreement under the federal
AHOP program for fiscal 1974 and agreed to make available a grant
of $300 per annum for appropriate applicants in addition to a similar
amount of federal assistance at that time. Financially, the corporation
is engaged in mortgage lending in smaller communities and rural areas
not well-served by conventional lenders. This latter program began in
1971 with direct provincial funding at $6 million and reached $15
million within two years. In 1974 a cost-shared program was initiated
with 882 loans amounting to $13.4 million. The federal and provincial
contributions were 75 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively.

In mid-1975 the government announced that Newfoundland had
recorded, in 1974, its highest ever number of housing starts (4,911),
“in a year when starts in Canada were substantially down.”®4

ANALYTICAL SUMMARY

This detailed review of housing policies and programs throughout
the Canadian provinces (not excluding Ontario which is the subject of
the following chapter) reveals a number of significant shifts in the
first half of the 1970s, disclosing trends which continued into the latter
half of the decade and extend into the 1980s. There can be little doubt
from the multitude of new legislation enacted and amendments to
previous legislation, that every province, in its own way and on the
basis of its special political and social philosophy, attempted seriously
to deal with the housing requirements of its people.

The legislative changes were required in large part because of
amendments to the National Housing Act enacted in 1972 and 1973.
Programs such as NIP, RRAP and AHOP offered much more flexibility
to the provinces than in the past and much greater opportunity to
demonstrate physical and statistical results in terms of projects under-
taken, dwellings renovated and new and existing dwellings purchased
by moderate-income families. The most important factor influencing
provincial governmental housing policies in the 1970s was the essential
requirement to take advantage of federal programs, even though they
represented a political and social shift away from the emphases which
were implicit in the legislative amendments of 1964.

It would be quite incorrect, however, to imply that federal legislation

96 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

forced any provincial government to disavow its political philosophy in
the interest of receiving federal financial assistance. It seems to be
quite clear that the basic philosophy underlying the new federal pro-
grams instituted in the first half of the 1970s was almost entirely
consistent with the principles underlying provincial approaches to the
solution of housing problems.

The traditional approach to the provision of housing accommodation
for low-income families, which was the basis of the 1949 NHA amend-
ments, strengthened by the new National Housing Act 1954, and its
major review in 1964, had fallen from favour by the early 1970s. In
part, this was because the original federal-provincial partnership, legis-
lated in November 1949, had failed to produce the mass of housing
accommodation required to meet the needs of low-income families.

The Ontario Housing Corporation demonstrated conclusively after
1965 that the new funding arrangements in Section 43 of the NHA
could produce vast quantities of rental housing, but most of the other
provinces were either unsuccessful in their attempt to duplicate the
response of the OHC or their housing corporations were wary of some .
of the social and economic pitfalls which the OHC encountered. Above
all else, by the late 1960s and the early 1970s the experience in Ontario
revealed extremely difficult problems of housing management when
large numbers of families eligible for public rental housing were
accommodated in relatively large projects. There can be little question
that most provincial corporations moved slowly and deliberately in
the late 1960s observing on the one hand, the enormous increase in
the public housing stock in Ontario, and on the other, the need to
create a substantial bureaucracy to develop, construct, operate and
manage a vast stock of publicly-owned dwellings for rental.

By the mid-1970s it was evident that a very important shift had
occurred involving selectivity by the provincial housing corporations,
including OHC. Public housing for families was out of favour not
merely because of the problems involved in its construction and admin-
istration but because two new, important groups of persons with
housing needs had come to the fore: senior citizens and sole-support
mothers with dependent children. The preceding review of provincial
housing activity from British Columbia to Newfoundland showed clearly
that recent annual reports placed emphasis upon the needs of senior
citizens and the development of new programs to meet these needs.
Every province stated that in one way or another it had a program
entitled, “Senior Citizens Housing”, although titles varied across the
nation. The numerical results recorded in successive annual reports.
revealed that housing for the elderly was expanding both in number of
dwelling units and in number of municipalities involved, but also that
family housing had virtually ceased.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 97

This phenomenon was not the apparent heartless policy shift that
it seemed to be, particularly to organizations of public housing tenants.
What had happened was a major socio-economic and philosophical
shift, away from rental housing and in the direction of home ownership.
The initiation of AHOP in 1973 proved to be far more significant
than its proponents anticipated. There can be little doubt that thousands
of moderate-income Canadian families were enabled by this program
(based upon a federal-provincial agreement renewed from time to time
by each province) to assume the responsibilities of home ownership.

The statistical results are impressive but the ultimate economic and
social consequences are potentially dangerous. The emphasis placed by
both the federal and provincial governments upon this program was
made clear when AHOP was amended in 1975/76 as a part of a
program put forward by the Government of Canada “designed to
produce one million new housing units over the next four years.”5°
The minister stated that AHOP would be made available to any
Canadian household of two or more people wanting to buy moderately-
priced housing and to keep their monthly payments equal to those of
an 8 per cent mortgage. This provision removed the requirement that
the purchasers be a couple with one or more children. At that time
the conventional mortgage lending rate was 12 to 12% per cent.

At the same time the special grants designed to keep monthly pay-
ments under 25 per cent of gross income were increased from $600
to $750 per annum. In addition, as before, the reduction in effective
market interest rate took the form of a loan which was interest-free
for the first five years and repayable with interest after a year of grace,
that is, commencing with the seventh year. In the view of many
observers, this program is a time bomb because it depends, for its
fulfillment, upon the continuance of rising incomes and thus assurance
that purchasers will be able to repay in due course. No one had yet
suggested what might happen if they could not pay.**

The provincial housing corporations in the 1970s were particularly
interested in land banking and Jand assembly for a variety of purposes
within their jurisdictions. It is particularly interesting to note that
almost every province quoted its acquisitions of land in its publications
of the mid-1970s at the very time when Ontario, with very substantial
land acquisitions, was determined to carefully and deliberately get out
of the land banking business in favour of its municipalities.

Finally, it became a fact in the decade 1965-1974 that every province
made a real effort to accept responsibility and to undertake programs
to meet some of the housing requirements of its citizens. This was
quite untrue prior to 1964. In the ensuing decade a great deal was
attempted, sometimes with success and sometimes with little results.
Both the electors and their elected representatives seemed dedicated

98 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

to do something about this most complex of all Canadian socio-
economic problems. Nevertheless, with the onset of the 1980s, they
still appear to be seeking the least painful solutions when there are
really none without significant expenditure of time, effort and money.

NOTES

tef. supra., chapter IV., p. 64.

Statistics Canada, Income Distributions by Size in Canada 1977 (Ottawa:
August 1979) Table 2, pp. 40-41. Preliminary data for 1978 continue to
reveal a slight lead over Alberta in average but not median incomes.

%Grants are available from the Ministry of Housing to assist in the
development of a municipal housing policy statement. The ministry will
also provide assistance in obtaining housing data and has established study
guidelines. Only upon approval of a housing policy statement may a
municipality proceed with municipal land development under the Housing
Development Act. Cf. “Housing Programs in Ontario”, Housing Ontario,
Vol. 20, No. 1, January/ February 1976, p. 6.

4Living Room: The City of Toronto’s Housing Policy (Toronto: Housing
Work Group) December 1973.

5Vid. infra, chapter VI.

®Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statistics
1978 (Ottawa, March 1979) Table 55, p. 49. Includes activities under the
following Sections of the National Housing Act: Loans to Entrepreneurs
and Non-Profit Corporations (Section 15 and 15.1), Public Housing (Sec-
tion 43), Student Housing (Section 47), Assisted Home Ownership Pro-
grammes (Sections 34.15, 58 and 59), Co-operative Housing (Section
34.18), Federal-Provincial Rental and Sales Housing Projects (Section 40),
Assisted Rental Programme and Graduated Payment Mortgage (Section
58), and Loans by Approved Lenders (Section 6).

TIncludes activities under the following Sections of the National Housing
Act: Loans to Entrepreneurs and Non-Profit Corporations (Section 15 and
15.1), Public Housing (Section 43), Student Housing (Section 47), Assisted
Home-Ownership Programmes (Sections 34.15, 58 and 59), Co-operative
Housing (Section 34.18), and Federal Provincial Rental and Sales Housing
Projects (Section 40). CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1973, (Ottawa:
March 1974), Table 51, p. 44.

8British Columbia, Department of Housing, First Annual Report (Vic-
toria, January 1, 1975) p. 9.

%Ibid., p. 9.
10dem.

Letter from Lorne Nicolson, Minister of Housing to Barnett Danson,
Minister of State for Urban Affairs, August 9th, 1974.

New Initatives by Provincial and Local Governments 99

12Letters from Barnett Danson, Minister of State for Urban Affairs to
Lome Nicolson, Minister of Housing in British Columbia, October 1, and
October 3, 1974.

18Letter from Barnett Danson to Lorne Nicolson, June 30th, 1975.
14British Columbia, Department of Housing, op. cit., p. 6.

UWI bid., p. 12.

Ibid. p. 15.

17British Columbia, Housing and Rent Control in British Columbia. A
report prepared by the Interdepartmental Study Team on Housing and
Rents. (Vancouver: October 1975) pp. 450.

18Aiberta Housing Corporation, Annual Report 1973 (Edmonton: 1974)
pp. 3-4.

19Alberta Housing Corporation, /5-Month Review and Financial State-
ment, January 1, 1974 ~ March 31, 1975 (Edmonton: 1976) p. 5.

20Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, Annual Report 1973 (Regina:
1974) p. 3. Cf. Saskatchewan Housing Corporation Act 1973, S. 13(i),
(av).

°UTbid., p. 5.

22Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, Annual Report 1974 (Regina:
1975) p. 6.

*8Ibid., p. 9. The figures for total inventory do not accurately reflect the
change since the end of 1973.

24Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation, Annual Report 1974/75
(Winnipeg: 1976).

28 bid., p. 4.
26Ibid., pp. 5-6.
27Ibid., pp. 8-9.

28CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1976 (Ottawa: March 1977)
Table 119, p. 94. The estimated population for 1976 was 1,028,000.

29Tables II and HI.

30Habiter au Québec, January 1976, (mimeographed, auspices and
publisher not given, January 1976) p. 15.

511bid., p. 3-6.
821bid., p. 9.

33New Brunswick Housing Corporation, Annual Report 1974/75 (Fred-
ericton: 1975) p. 4.

3Ibid., p. 2-4.
35]bid., p. 6.

100 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Ibid. p.9.

8™Nova Scotia Housing Commission, Annual Report (for the fiscal year
ending March 31, 1974) (Halifax: 1974) p. 5.

88[bid., p. 11.
89fbid., p. 15.

49Nova Scotia Housing Commission, Annual Report (for the fiscal year
ending March 31, 1975) (Halifax: 1975) p. 5.

41Ibid., p. 13.
421bid., p.9.

48The Nova Scotia Housing Commission, Annual Report (for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 1974) p. 9.

4#4The Nova Scotia Housing Commission, Annual Report (for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 1975) p. 11.

45Prince Edward Island Housing Authority, Annual Report (for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 1974) p. 13. Housing starts for the province were
1,240.

461dem.

*bid., p. 14.
48Ibid., pp. 17-30.
491bid., p. 19.

50Prince Edward Island Housing Corporation, Program Summaries
(Charlottetown: mimeographed, June 1975) p. 15.

‘lJbid., p. 5. The word “poor” does not appear in such program titles in
any other province.

52Prince Edward Island Housing Authority, Annual Report (for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 1975) p. 9.

58Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, Statement of Pro-
grams (mimeographed, not dated) not paged.

54Government of Newfoundland, Statement by the Minister Responsible
for Housing Policy in Newfoundland (mimeo., July 4, 1975).

55Canada, Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, Statement by Barnett Danson
to the House of Commons, November 3, 1975, pp. 1-2.

56By the late 1970s, several thousand owners had given up their homes
either by mailing in their keys to CMHC, or by filing a formal “quit claim’;
apparently they moved to apartments at a lower shelter cost.

CHAPTER 6

Housing Policies in Ontario:
A Case Study

In April 1964 the Government of Ontario passed “An Act to
incorporate the Ontario Housing Corporation”:' a short law (15
sections) covering in its first version not more than five mimeographed
pages. This act did not effectively outline the nature of the new roles
that a provincial housing corporation might play in the housing market
and gave little hint of the furious activity in public housing that was to
develop in Ontario within a space of three to four years.

Nevertheless, the Government of Ontario did in fact establish a
corporation without share capital, under the name of the “Ontario
Housing Corporation”, to consist of not fewer than seven and not
more than eleven members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor-in-
Council. The most significant sections of the act were Sections 6-8
whereby the new corporation assumed, in the first instance, most of
the responsibilities laid down for the Government of Ontario under the
Housing Development Act of 1948? to make agreements with the
Government of Canada under Sections 23 and 35 of the National
Housing Act of 1954.

In Section 6 there was little mention of new activities in the field of
housing, except in sub-section (4) which stated that “the corporation
may acquire and hold real property and dispose of such property from
time to time.” In Section 7 the new corporation was deemed to be a
management corporation under the terms of the Housing Development

101

102 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Act. In Section 8 the Ontario Housing Corporation was given extensive
power to raise its own funds by way of loans or the issue and sale of
debentures, bills or notes, to be guaranteed by the Ontario government.
Although these latter powers have yet to be exercised, they constitute
what might have been considered an ace in the hole should the require-
ments within Ontario exceed the resources available from the federal
corporation.*®

With this very simple piece of legislation as background, the OHC
began to communicate its intentions and its potential program through-
out the more than 900 organized municipalities within the province
late in 1964 and throughout the first half of 1965. It dissolved the
Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority towards the end of November
1964 and took over the administration of some 2,500 dwelling units
within the metropolitan area. In fact, the new provincial corporation
became a housing authority for the second largest municipality in
Canada, while permitting the continuing existence of some 38 other
federal-provincial housing authorities within the province. All federal-
provincial public housing operations, however, were placed within the
jurisdiction of the Ontario Housing Corporation, which permitted the
remaining local authorities to administer and manage the existing
accommodation. In municipalities where a housing authority had not
previously existed the new corporation has, since 1965, assumed
responsibility for the administration of newly constructed public housing
and created regional offices throughout the province for this purpose.*

It was understood from the beginning that in an attempt to solve
the critical needs of low or moderate income families for housing
accommodation the OHC would have very broad powers. None of
these powers were spelled out specifically in the legislation. The staff
and board of directors of the OHC thus employed the most liberal
interpretation of the 1964 amendments to the National Housing Act
in an effort to create a much greater stock of public housing in Ontario
than existed during the previous fifteen years.

During the years 1965-1968 the program of the OHC may be said
to have passed through three distinct phases. In the first period, from
the early months of 1965 and for about twelve to fifteen months
thereafter, the corporation made every effort under Section 35D of
the National Housing Act to acquire existing housing accommodation
(in the form of row houses, maisonettes, garden-court apartments, and
multiple dwellings, as well as a program to acquire some 200 or more
individual houses scattered throughout the City of Toronto and the
metropolitan area). The program of purchasing existing housing
(whether partially or entirely vacant, or even fully occupied) soon
built the stock in the metropolitan area to some 6,000 units. In large
measure this new and radical attack upon the housing problem was

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 103

made necessary by a formal request in the spring of 1965 to the OHC,
from the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, for 4,500 additional
public housing units to be provided within a year or two. There is
little question that Metropolitan Toronto officials were dubious about
the ability of the new corporation to fulfil such a large quota, and it is
obvious that they had not envisaged the possibility that the response
of the corporation would be to purchase existing housing.

There is much to be recommended in the purchase of existing
housing during the early or formative stage of any new provincial
housing corporation. This statement is based, of course, upon the
assumption that there is a quantity of existing housing to be purchased
and that the prices of such accommodation conform to federal and
provincial regulations. In the spring of 1965 and for some months
thereafter, all these conditions were met and the apparent success of
the corporation was a major factor in influencing the passage of new
housing legislation in several other Canadian provinces.

It soon became clear to the officials of the OHC that a full program
could not depend for very long upon the purchase of existing housing
which is relatively easy and quick to accomplish, provided the financial
resources are available. These purchases simply transfer housing ac- —
commodation as quickly as possible from one sector of the population
(say the lower middle-income group) to families in the lowest third of
the income distribution. It does not add sorely needed housing to the
total stock. The fact that such purchased housing could not easily be
replaced and was not likely to be replaced by developers was not fore-
seen in the first instance. Moreover, the three largest municipalities
within Metropolitan Toronto soon instigated a new form of resistance
to the location of public housing within their boundaries, either by
outright refusal to approve subdivision plans incorporating housing
accommodation which might be suitable for purchase by the OHC, or
by slowing down the process whereby approval would be granted.

A second phase of the operations of the OHC can be distinguished
commencing about the autumn of 1965 and continuing throughout the
ensuing two-and-a-half years; it may be described as “the encouragement
of new construction through builders’ proposals.” This was not a new
device prompted by the attrition of the purchase of existing housing,
but had always been foreseen from the initiation of the corporation.
By the beginning of 1966 it was apparent that entirely new construction
was the only way in which public housing could be provided in most
of the small and medium-sized municipalities within the province.
Furthermore, the hope of greatly expanding the public housing stock
over the ensuing five to ten years, particularly in the five largest urban
centres (Windsor, London, Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa), clearly
Jay in the development of large plans encompassing hundreds if not

104 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

thousands of dwelling units. The corporation soon began to advertise
for builders’ proposals for specific amounts of housing for senior
citizens and large families, and for traditional mixtures of bedroom
counts within multiple dwellings, to be built usually on land owned or
optioned by the developers themselves. Sometimes the site of the land
was specifically mentioned, since the municipality was ready to sell
such land to the corporation and sometimes the developers were asked
to suggest appropriate locations.

These new techniques proved to be quantitatively as successful as
the purchase of existing housing but of much more permanent value.
Rarely did the corporation receive just one or two proposals in response
to its proposal calls; customarily it received from six to fifteen and
sometimes more — even in cases where the number of dwellings to be
constructed in municipalities with populations of 10,000 to 25,000 was
no more than twenty or twenty-five units. There clearly developed a
substantial housing industry in Ontario which depended to a great
extent upon the activities of the OHC and which was prepared to offer
well located, sound and adequate housing at prices that appeared to
be reasonable in the light of the rapid inflation which beset almost
every phase of our economic activity since 1966.

It must be emphasized that the OHC acted only at the request of a
local or municipal government within the province. At the time of its
creation in 1964, some elected local officials were fearful that the new
corporation would enter the field of housing within municipalities
which had not previously shown any interest or initiative in this field
and, perhaps, had shown outright prejudice against the location of
public housing in their midst. If such were the fears of local govern-
ments, they had since evaporated. The minister and the chairman of
the Ontario Housing Corporation made it clear in a series of symposia
held in late 1964 and early 1965 that the corporation would take
action only after the passage of a specific resolution by a municipal
council asking the OHC to take action. This action usually consisted,
in the first instance, of a brief survey to make some judgment of the
need and demand for public housing in a given locality. A report was
presented to the local council, which was required to request the OHC
to construct a specified number of dwellings for families and/or senior
citizens, often specifying the size of the accommodation and sometimes
the location desired.>

A good deal of negotiation on the part of the officials of the
municipality and the officials of the corporation then ensued; a proposal
call would be issued and widely advertised; proposals would be received
and examined; a specific recommendation would be made to the board
of directors of the OHC; and then, and only then, would a contract
be awarded to the successful proponent. Even at that stage the recom-

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 105

mendation of the staff and board of directors was cleared with the
mayor and local council so that the charge could not be made that
public housing had been shoved down the throats of any municipality
against its will.

A third phase in the operations of the OHC commenced towards the
end of 1966 with the creation of a subsidiary corporation known as
the Ontario Student Housing Corporation. In December 1966 the
Lieutenant Governor-in-Council appointed this corporation, which
included all of the members of the Ontario Housing Corporation
together with the following members from appropriate departments of
the Ontario government: the Deputy Minister of University Affairs,
the Deputy Minister of Education, and the Deputy Managing Director
(Development) of the OHC.

This new group began in 1967 to develop and construct residential
accommodation for students at any university within Ontario which
requested the services of the new corporation. In fact, the staff of the
two corporations were one and the same, although some members were
hired with particular responsibilities in the field of student housing. The
important thing to observe is that the universities within Ontario were
treated by the Ontario Student Housing Corporation in exactly the
same manner as local governments were treated by the OHC. The
universities were required to request the services of the OSHC, and
this corporation acted only in response to a clear and definite request
for its services by a fully recognized university or other institution of
higher learning within the province.*

At the end of 1971 the Ontario Housing Corporation was responsible
for the administration and social management of 42,630 dwelling units:
33,977 for families and 8,653 for senior citizens. The distribution of
public housing between Metro Toronto and the balance of Ontario
was almost exactly in the ratio of 45:55. An additional 7,339 housing
units were constructed or acquired in 1972, bringing the provincial
total to just under 50,000 and dropping the Metro proportion to 43.4
per cent.

Despite these evident physical and arithmetic achievements there
was growing criticism of the OHC, the housing program, and the
government. The housebuilding industry displayed increasing alarm at
the significance of public housing in the province and the rising pro-
portions of annual completions which were in the public sector. The
municipalities were more critical than in the past of the growing public
housing presence in their midst. Moreover, local governments were
receiving demands from tenant groups for increases in local services:
recreation, public health, day care and other social services. Elected
and appointed officials tended to blame the activity in public housing
for concentrating the needy and the demanding in large projects and

106 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

for encouraging citizen involvement in public affairs. For their part,
however, tenant and citizen groups under the guidance of the recently
created Federation of Ontario. Tenant Associations (FOTA) were
critical of the social management in public housing programs, critical
of admission procedures, critical of the rent scales and all manner of
rules and regulations governing social behaviour. In addition, FOTA
blamed the OHC for specific gaps in local, social, health and recrea-
tional services which were well beyond the corporation’s mandate,

In response to these and various other criticisms of Ontario Housing
Corporation and his government, Premier William Davis appointed, in
November 1972, an Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy. He named
Professor Eli Comay of York University, former Commissioner of
Planning for Metropolitan Toronto, as chairman of the inquiry.

THE ONTARIO ADVISORY TASK FORCE
ON HOUSING POLICY

The report of the task force describes its review as “the first major
public examination of Ontario’s housing”. Its terms of reference were
the following.

1. Examine the current housing situation in Ontario.

2. Make recommendations on “the appropriate role of the Ontario
government in helping to meet the housing needs of the residents
of Ontario.”7

3. Make recommendations on the organizational requirements for
developing and implementing suitable housing policies.®

The significance of this report for all provincial governments may
first be exemplified in its statement of housing objectives. For the
government to pursue its housing responsibilities properly, provincial
housing activities should relate to the following housing objectives:

(a) to ensure the provision of housing for all households in adequate
numbers, and at suitable locations to support community
development in accordance with local and provincial develop-
ment policies;

(b) to demonstrate government priority for housing by instituting
suitable administrative procedures and providing required finan-
cial assistance;

(c) to assist in the provision of buildable urban land to implement
development policies and to achieve stable land prices;

(d) to maximize the impact of available housing funds on housing
production;

(e) to establish adequate programs and suitable administrative

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 107

machinery at the provincial and municipal levels which clearly
relate housing to social and welfare objectives;

(£) to maintain the quality of the existing housing stock;

(g) to provide equal and adequate help for persons with equal
needs;

(bh) to enable low- and moderate-income families and persons, and
groups with special needs such as the elderly, native people,
handicapped persons, students, and single persons to live in
adequate housing conditions, at a price they can afford;

(i) to provide adequate choice in housing type and location and
between owning and renting homes;

(j) to achieve the dispersion and integration of low- and moderate-
income housing throughout communities generally;

(k) to secure the protection of the rights of home purchasers and
tenants; and,

(1) to encourage improvement and innovation in housing construc-
tion, design and marketing, and Jand planning.°

The report of the task force indicated that a critical situation existed

in the early 1970s. The following will illustrate the reasoning upon
which the recommendations were based.

Several constraining circumstances have distorted the supply of housing
and affected its cost. Among these are the continually rising standards
which have led to production geared primarily to middle- and upper-
income occupancy.:Older houses are no longer available for the poor.
With the shortage and rising cost of new housing, the price of old
housing has risen sharply as well. The supply of serviced buildable
land has not kept up with the urban growth in many areas. Environ-
mental concerns, leading to stricter controls, have limited the supply
of housing land. Planning procedures and regulations have seriously
slowed down the development of housing land. Greater community
participation has frequently slowed down or stopped housing produc-
tion. The shortage of housing land and of housing had led to an
accelerating price spiral, exacerbated by speculation and by panic
buying in many areas. These circumstances prevail in varying degrees
in most parts of the province, and apply to rental as well as ownership
housing. As well, in the rural and northern communities, there are
additional problems. peculiar to them.

These are not the only factors affecting the current housing situation.
Certainly the rise in the cost of labour and materials, and the cost of
financing, have played a very important role. These are outside the
scope of the task force’s review, but must command serious attention
from the provincial and federal governments.

The constraints on production and the rising expectations of housing
consumers have led to a widening gap between the kind and cost of
housing which is provided and people’s ability and willingness to pay
for such housing. If the constraints are not overcome, housing Ontario’s
citizens will be increasingly difficult and will become increasingly a
matter of subsidization.1¢

108 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

The major recommendations were an attempt to relieve these. difficult
situations, and they ranged from the basic question of governmental
organization to protection for home owners and tenants within the law.
Every facet of the problem within these two limits was covered in one
way or another, however adequate or inadequate the recommendation
and without regard to the position of the Ontario government on
certain issues raised in this Report. The five major recommendations
were as follows.

(1) A Ministry of Housing, Planning and Local Government should
be established within the governmental system in the province of
Ontario.

The task force saw the creation of a new ministry as a first step in the

development of a new policy field towards governmental intervention

to combine all the physical aspects of urban and regional development
within which housing policy and housing programs would fit.1! In the
view of the task force the fields of housing and urban development
must necessarily be combined. To effect this kind of governmental
organization meant in 1973-74 the transfer of the physical aspects of
urban and regional development from the existing Ministry of Treasury,

Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs (TEIGA). This was a very

significant and challenging recommendation and in substantial measure

was soon implemented by Premier William Davis who announced, soon
after receipt of the report, that a Ministry of Housing would be created
within the province.!?

(2) Within the new ministry two Crown corporations should exist to
deal with the problems of housing and community development in
the province: These corporations would be:

(a) The Ontario Housing Corporation (in existence since Septem-
ber 1964 and to be continued); and,
(b) The Ontario Housing Finance Corporation

The latter, which was a new organizational recommendation, would be
responsible for all the financial aspects of housing assistance and
residential land acquisition. Within a year following the tabling of
the report in late summer of 1973 these recommendations were fully
accepted. The OHC was continued and is described in its own publica-
tions as “an agency of the Ministry of Housing.” In late August 1974,
the Ontario Mortgage Corporation (the government’s choice of title)
was created and its membership announced by the Premier. It is
interesting to note that the Chairman of OMC is W. H. Hignett who
had completed his term of office and retired from the position of
president of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

The task force saw the core function of the new ministry as estab-
lishing policy and planning and carrying out the province’s housing
development program. Three additional broad types of functions were

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 109

visualized: development of assisted housing, land acquisition and new

community development; urban and regional planning and local gov-

ernmental services; and, the management of assisted housing.’? The
only major functional responsibility that was not fully assigned to the

Ministry of Housing was urban and regional planning and local govern-

ment services. Some important functions in the field of physical planning

were transferred from TEIGA to the new ministry but the overall
responsibility for urban and regional planning and local governmental
services remained with TEIGA (in recent years TEIGA has absorbed
two former ministries: the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the

Ministry of Economics and Development).

(3) Municipalities in Ontario should have their responsibilities in the
field of housing expanded. (This is closely related to a further
recommendation for the establishment of a Provincial Housing
Development Program, within which the role of the municipalities
would be defined. )

This recommendation constituted a significant reversal of governmental

organization for the implementation of housing policies in Ontario.

The establishment of the Ontario Housing Corporation, with its head-

quarters in Toronto, meant a significant centralization of responsibilities.

The previous understanding that local governments and local housing

authorities would have substantial responsibilities in the fields of initia-

tion and management was changed dramatically. The Metropolitan

Toronto Housing Authority was incorporated within the OHC. More-

over, local housing authorities continued with managerial roles but

with firmer specifications and stronger controls from the corporation’s
head office.

As the program began to spread out into municipalities without any
previous component of publicly-provided housing, a form of direct
management was instituted from Toronto instead of establishing local
housing authorities. It was not until 1973 that the OHC began to
establish branch offices in Ottawa, London, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay.
This development was the first indication that some decentralization
was essential. Those employed in direct management could not be in
constant touch with headquarters while commuting from Toronto to
carry out their day-to-day managerial duties.

The most significant aspect of the task force’s recommendation
concerning delegated responsibility was the strong intimation contained
in the final sentence of its discussion of this subject:

. . in the case of housing, municipal commitments and housing plans
designed to achieve provincial as well as local housing objectives
should lead to the delegation of responsibilities to the regional and
local municipalities.

110 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

This recommendation has since been implemented by virtue of the

Ministry of Housing’s clear understanding that the application of its

programs within local or regional governmental areas would depend

on the formulation of a housing policy and a statement of plans and

programs by the local government concerned.”®

(4) The housing responsibilities of the Government of Ontario should
be met by a variety of actions, “all of which should be organized
and administered under a Provincial housing development pro-
gram.”

Provincial involvement in housing should be directed to:

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)

(e)

restoring the effectiveness of the private market to the extent
most practical in the provision of housing;

supplementing the private sector at those levels where it cannot
provide an adequate supply of housing;

providing assistance to persons whose incomes are inadequate
to obtain suitable housing;

taking primary responsibility for initiating a broad-based housing
program in all urban areas of Ontario. (This implies, where
necessary, assumption of total financial responsibility by the
senior governments) ;

providing both short-term and long-term programs for assisted
housing at different levels (subsidized for low-income and
unsubsidized for moderate- and middle-income) so as to pre-
vent a serious imbalance at various levels of housing need.1¢

The report continued with a series of guidelines governing the
selection of different housing actions.

(a)
(b)

(c)

(d)

Land supply should be given major emphasis, in both of its
public elements - land servicing and public land acquisition.
The programs should lead to a housing supply which, in general,
more closely matches the distribution of incomes, thus reducing
the need for subsidized assisted housing. This implies a dual
approach to the future housing supply — to reduce housing
costs, and to adjust housing standards.

Land servicing should receive primary emphasis in the joint
program of land servicing and land acquisition provided that
owners of developable land will meet an agreed commitment
to bring such lands into housing production at reasonable
prices which restore stability to the land market.

Public land acquisition for strategic intervention in the market
should be subsidiary and should be used when the private
market is unable or fails to meet established provincial housing
goals.17

The most significant guidelines were those which placed emphasis on
increasing the supply of serviced land and the acquisition of land by

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 41

the public authority, in this case primarily the provincial government
through the two proposed Crown corporations proposed; but this did
not exclude municipal land banking.

It is noteworthy that on the day on which the task force report was
published (September 13, 1979) Premier Davis announced that the
chairman of the task force, Eli Comay, would be engaged at once to
implement a “Housing Action Program” which conceived the develop-
ment of 100,000 serviced building lots within a period of several
months.!* It is now well understood that the OHC embarked on a
substantial program of public land acquisition in areas recommended
by Comay, and that certain municipalities such as the City of Toronto
also received funds for such purposes.

The overall recommendation — the establishment of a provincial
housing development program — encompassed a series of important
secondary recommendations which constitute the essence of the pro-
gram. The report not only laid down directions and guidelines but a
series of “main program elements”, which included the following: land
supply;1® land servicing;?° land acquisition;?! assisted housing;?? a
short-term program designed to speed up the supply of single-family
and multiple housing in the major urban areas of Metropolitan Toronto,
Hamilton, and Ottawa, with some attention “possibly in some northern
communities; and, other assistance to municipalities in the form of
school building programs and other community services.**

The land acquisition program was specifically designated for the
following purposes, presumably in order of priority:

— land for public housing;
land for non-profit and co-operative developers;
land for leased lots;
land for new community development, and to implement regional
planning policies;
land for strategic intervention in the land market; and,

— land for municipal land banking.?®
(5) A comprehensive program of “housing assistance” whereby differ-

ent sections of the community would get various kinds of assist-

ance, both subsidized and unsubsidized, with particular reference

to their requirements.
“Housing assistance” is covered in depth in the report.2* The recom-
mendation begins with the specifics of “residential mortgage assistance”
and delineates a provincial role in this field through the proposed
Ontario Housing Finance Corporation. A strong provincial role in this
area was not entirely an innovation, since the OHC was already involved
in a series of programs in which mortgage assistance was available to
builders: first, in terms of the provisions of the Condominium Act 1968
(guaranteed provincial second mortgages); and second, when private

112 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

developers were willing to make 25 per cent of their dwelling units
available to low-income families under the provisions of the Integrated
Community Housing Program (first mortgage assistance).

The major recommendation, however, was directed more towards
grants and interest subsidies for low-income families, second mortgages
for moderate-income families, and assistance to enable purchasers of
older homes to undertake needed renovations. The recommendation
included direct lending to individuals who were not served by the
private market and subsidized interest rates to non-profit organizations
and co-operatives for the construction and rehabilitation of housing
for low-income families.27

The detail within the overall sphere of housing assistance is extra-
ordinary. The recommendation included home-ownership assistance,
assisted housing for low-income families and the elderly, public housing,
community and social facilities, direct public housing for the elderly,
and housing for other groups with special needs — native people,
handicapped persons, the mentally retarded, roomers, students.

It is obvious that the task force attempted to cover every conceivable
aspect of governmental intervention in the form of assistance, whether
through adjustments in the mortgage field and in rentals; special provi-
sions for groups disadvantaged by age, ethnic, physical or emotional
disabilities; and students temporarily with little or no income.

A MINISTRY OF HOUSING WITHIN THE
GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO

In mid-1973 the task force’s report emphasized that Ontario’s current
housing situation was substantially derived from two great strategic
weaknesses:

1. “the absence of any guiding housing principles” at both the

provincial and municipal levels of government; and,

2, the “protective and negative” character of the regulations and
procedures which influence housing production where a “positive
and productive” approach is required.*§

The task force had been appointed on October 6, 1972, One year
later (October 2, 1973) Premier Davis presented a statement “On
Housing” in the legislature, in which he initiated a Ministry of Housing
and tabled the Ministry of Housing Act 1973. The premier placed
particular emphasis on programs that had already been initiated since
the formal publication of the task force report three weeks earlier
(September 13).

Mr. Davis announced that a new cabinet committee, under the
chairmanship of the Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 113

Affairs, would be set up; this committee would include the new
Minister of Housing, the Ministers of Revenue and Government
Services, and the chairman of the Management Board (formerly the
Treasury Board). A further recommendation of the task force was
also accepted, in principle, in the premier’s statement that certain
functions then in TEIGA?® would be brought within the purview of
the new Ministry of Housing. Moreover, more authority would be
delegated to regional governments and certain municipalities. The
premier reiterated that the government supported in principle the guide-
lines “set out by the Comay Task Force for the future development of
the government role in the provision of housing for the people of
Ontario,””°

The Ministry of Housing Act 1973 is a typical piece of Ontario
Government legislation in the sense that it is relatively short, simple
and direct, without in any way indicating the particular programs
which might be created or the terms under which such programs would
be offered within the province and within the realm of intergovern-
mental relations. In total, the act consisted of twelve sections and not
more than 100 lines of text. The most important part of the legislation
is Section 7, “Objectives of Minister”, which reads as follows:

The minister or the deputy minister, subject to the direction and control

of the minister, shall,

(a) make appropriate recommendations to the Government of Ontario
on policies and objectives on housing and related matters with
regard to the short-term and long-term housing needs of the
people of Ontario;

(b) make recommendations for the effective co-ordination of all
housing and related matters within the Government of Ontario,
with a view to ensuring the consistent application of policy;

(c) advise and otherwise assist the Government of Ontario in its
dealings with other governments regarding housing and related
matters; and

(d) advise and otherwise assist local authorities and other persons
involved in local planning and development of housing with regard
to realizing the objectives of the Government of Ontario for
housing and related matters.#4

The organization of the new ministry was quite rapid. The first
minister was Robert Welch, formerly the Policy Minister for Social
Development. By January ist, 1974, the minister had appointed a
deputy minister and had issued a brochure indicating in general terms
the challenge which the ministry faced. Approximately 40 per cent of
the total text was devoted to the “housing action program” which
followed immediately upon the tabling of the Ontario Advisory Task
Force Report. There was also a general description of the program of
the OHC.

114 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

The brochure included a directory of services, which was an impres-
sive roster of potential responsibilities and functions that had formerly
been under the direction of TEIGA (such as committees of adjustment,
the Niagara Escarpment Planning Regulations, the North Pickering
Development Team, and sub-division approvals). The list of services
also dealt with grants, subsidies, loans, urban renewal, and the Neigh-
bourhood Improvement Program, introduced by the federal minister
during the previous year.

AN INITIAL POLICY STATEMENT

In May 1974 the ministry issued its “Initial Statement of Policies,
Programs and Partnerships”, entitled Housing Ontario ’74.%* This
first major policy statement was ushered in with considerable fanfare,
including a press seminar to which the minister, the deputy minister,
and both assistant deputy ministers spoke on May 28, some seven
months following the formation of the ministry. This document and
attendant remarks are worth examining in some detail to indicate the
way in which a major province (which includes about 40 per cent of
the Canadian population) regards its responsibilities in the fields of
housing and urban development.

The statement begins with a ringing declaration that “adequate
housing at affordable prices is a basic right of all residents in
Ontario.”** This is significant among the overall objectives, clearly
committing the Government of Ontario to a series of housing policies
and programs which it could no longer neglect or avoid. Nevertheless,
it enunciates that “the people of Ontario, are by almost any standard
of measurement, among the best-housed people in the world”,®* and
the statistics supporting this statement are impressive.

In 1972 the 7.8 million resident of Ontario had available 2.3 million
dwellings — an average of 3.4 persons per dwelling. Ontario was still
substantially a province of homeowners with 65 per cent of the total
available dwellings owner-occupied; 88 per cent of these were in the
form of single-family detached houses. In the years that have elapsed
since these figures were made available the ratio of people to dwellings
has declined further, since the amount of new housing available con-
tinued to grow at a faster rate than household formations. In fact,
throughout the 1960s the statistics for new persons per new dwelling
averaged 2.5 and in the first three years of the 1970s this figure dropped
to an average of 1.3.35

These statistical data should not necessarily be considered cause for
rejoicing. The situation may very well have been brought about by

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 115

the production of vast numbers of small dwelling units in high-rise
multiple buildings; in 1973 a little more than one-fifth of all dwellings
in Ontario had, on the average, fewer than one person per bedroom.**
It would appear from these broad statistics that Ontario’s housing
accommodation is in reality under-utilized. On the other hand, a further
decline in the ratio of new persons per new dwelling could be an
additional factor in accentuating the very real housing crisis which
exists, despite the apparently favourable statistical indicators.

The Ministry of Housing emphasized that the essence of the serious
difficulties facing Ontario’s housing market rests in the cost of housing.
The cost of land and of building has risen so rapidly that many
thousands of prospective homeowners and tenants can no longer afford
home-ownership, at least for the time being. As tenants they continue
to pay 25 to 50 per cent of their income for shelter which has the
two-fold effect of restricting the breadth of an adequate standard of
living and making it impossible for many families to save sufficient
money to meet the downpayment requirements of home-ownership.
The Ministry emphasized that

it is not a simple matter of too little supply and too much demand.
The home-building industries are producing, in total terms, more than
enough new dwelling units to keep pace with growth in population and
household formations.?7

Nevertheless, the essential features of Ontario’s housing policies must
be focused upon supply and demand: on the one hand, ensuring the
supply of adequate housing at reasonable cost; and on the other hand,
introducing programs whereby demand can be supported to enable
families, couples, and individuals to enter the housing market. On this
basis the ministry stated a long series of commitments covering the
entire gamut of housing production and distribution — from encouraging
the rehabilitation of existing housing stock, through intervention in land
and money markets, to the stimulation of new designs and building
techniques to increase the supply of housing at relatively stable cost.
The basic policy statement went on to indicate that translation of
these commitments into action would necessitate that the ministry move
simultaneously on five major fronts.

1. To increase the supply of new housing by bringing quickly into
production serviced land that might otherwise be left undeveloped
for two or three more years.

2. To improve existing housing stock by directly encouraging the
rehabilitation of older housing and deteriorating neighbourhoods.

3. To discourage unproductive, pure speculation in land and in
housing by engaging directly in extensive public land assembly
and by empowering regional and municipal governments to do

116 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

the same, and through the application of the provincial govern-
ment’s new land speculation tax.

4. To broaden the mix of new housing by encouraging developers,
and municipal or community non-profit housing groups, to pro-
vide more well-designed, lower-cost accommodation.

5. To reduce financial and regulatory obstacles to housing by
providing substantial sums of money — through grants, loans, and
mortgages — and by simplifying and streamlining government
regulations and procedures at all levels that bear directly or
indirectly on the cost of housing.**

The major programs introduced in Housing Ontario ’74 were for the
most part familiar by virtue of both the Report of the Advisory Task
Force on Housing Policy and the Amendments to the National Housing
Act put forward by the federal Minister of State for Urban Affairs in
mid-1973. The Ontario Ministry of Housing designated four main
programs as follows:

(a) Ontario Housing Action Program (OHAP)

(b) Ontario Mortgage Corporation

(d) Community-Sponsored Housing

The Ontario Housing Action Program was allocated $20 million for
the fiscal year 1974-75 to achieve three main objectives:

1. to bring into housing production as quickly as possible significant
amounts of serviced land that would not normally be developed
until the late 1970s;

2. to increase rapidly, as a result of (1), the total supply of new
housing;

3. to increase significantly the production of new housing available
to families of low and moderate income.®®

The efforts of the ministry would be devoted initially to Housing Action
Areas located in major urban centres where cost and supply pressures
were considered to be greatest. The ministry estimated that this pro-
gram would directly influence the production in 1974 of 12,000 dwelling
units which might otherwise have been built a year or two later, and
as many as 28,000 such units in 1975.

OHAP was originally scheduled to end March 31, 1976 but the
program was modified and extended to March 31, 1977.4° In the first
fiscal year of the ministry, ending March 31, 1975, the target of 12,000
units was exceeded, including “finally approved lots and blocks”. Total
production was reported as 12,877 units.

In addition, two forms of mortgage assistance were made available
through the Ontario Mortgage Corporation. Under the Direct Lending
Program, OMC provided mortgage financing for home purchasers (with

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 117

incomes up to $20,000) on the basis of OHAP agreements with
developers. In fiscal 1974 seventeen developers and builders were
assisted for twenty-one separate housing projects covering 3,999
housing units;** in fiscal 1975, 4,387 dwellings were started.**

In the following year mortgage financing under the Direct Lending
Program reached $42.6 million and a second program, the Interest-
Subsidy Program, announced July 7, 1975, made $26 million available
for mortgage interest subsidies on homes started by March 31, 1976
for moderate-income purchasers.

Municipalities were assisted in a number of ways through grants
under OHAP. The first annual report of the ministry listed development
processing studies (nine grants to seven municipalities) and policy
determination studies (eleven grants to ten municipalities).*4 A year
later the annual report listed Capital Housing Incentive Grants to
encourage municipalities to speed up final subdivision approvals and to
offset the possible increase in municipal taxes (an implementation of a
recommendation of the Housing Advisory Task Force). In fiscal 1975
nearly $6 million was granted to seven regional governments and three
additional municipalities; and an additional $3.5 million was paid for
fiscal 1974 starts.

Finally, there are the municipal housing study grants. Both regional
and area municipalities are eligible for grants toward the cost of studies
designed to facilitate residential development. Studies have included
servicing requirements, and feasibility and planning studies, At the end
of fiscal 1974, twenty-three applications had been received but only
two had been approved by March 31, 1975. In fiscal 1975, however,
forty-seven study grants were approved through OHAP to six regional
municipalities and twenty-four area municipalities for’a total of $1.7
million.*®

The Housing Action Program was in fact a three-way partnership
of the provincial government, local governments, and private industry.
Housing Ontario ’74 indicated the roles of the respective partners as
clearly as they could be stated in May 1974. The role of the Ministry
of Housing was to:

(a) assist local governments to identify those specific areas of
serviced or partially serviced land that can be brought quickly
into housing production, and to help develop policies and
production targets that are consistent with the province’s overall
housing policies;

(b) remove obstacles to housing development in those areas through
such actions as accelerating review and approval of subdivision
plans, and modifying where necessary — in co-operation with
other provincial and municipal agencies ~ environmental or

118 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

planning regulations which may unnecessarily delay develop-
ment and add to its cost, but which, even with modification,
still maintain sound environmental and planning principles;

(c) provide direct financing to municipalities where necessary to
ensure that local levels of government do not incur unwarranted
new costs as a result of accelerated housing development; and,

(d) work with the private development industry in meeting provin-
cial and local government policies and production targets.

The role of local government was to:

1. give priority to identifying Housing Action Areas and to ensure
that policies are implemented and production targets met with
identified time periods; and,

2. accept and discharge, in a manner consistent with the objective
of speeding housing development, those planning and develop-
ment powers being delegated by the provincial government on a
phased basis to regional governments.*®

The role of private industry, which was required to enter into binding
agreements with the appropriate levels of government, was intended to
guarantee:

1. production of the numbers and price range of dwellings specified
in the provincial, regional and municipal production targets;

2. stabilized lot prices; and,

3. specified amounts of land for the HOME Program.*7

The Ontario Mortgage Corporation (established in August 1974)

had the responsibility of consolidating and expanding substantially a
direct interest in mortgage financing to assist in the production of new
housing at prices more in line with the capacity of purchasers. The
corporation supplied mortgages at below market interest rates to
finance both lot-leased dwellings and condominiums under the Home
Ownership Made Easy (HOME) plan. This activity was entitled the
“Preferred Lending Program” and has been underway in Ontario since
1976. In addition, OMC would finance the Community Integrated
Housing Program (CIHP) whereby, as a quid pro quo, OHC would
receive 25 per cent of the dwelling units created under the program
to provide accommodation to low-income individuals and families.*
In all, the ministry anticipated that the new mortgage corporation
would assist in the production of up to 6,000 dwelling units in 1974.

ASSISTED RENTAL HOUSING

Assisted rental housing, in reality a new term for the more familiar
designation “public housing”, is accommodation for the elderly and
for families on the basis of rents-geared-to-income. For the fiscal year

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 119

1974-75 the ministry expected to provide some 10,000 dwelling units
along with the rent supplement program which would provide accom-
modation at reduced subsidized rental payments for another 1,500
dwelling units.

In that year the total budget for public housing accommodation for
senior citizens and families was approximately $84 million. It was
anticipated that 6,000 new units would be started for the elderly and
2,000 for family housing projects. No explanation was given for why
these figures did not coincide with the ministry’s statement that its
budget would provide about 10,000 new public housing units.*°

The new ministry offered to broaden the federal program of assist-
ance to non-profit and co-operative housing groups under its Com-
mumity-Sponsored Housing Program. Such groups might be sponsored
by local governments, labour unions, welfare agencies, churches, educa-
tional or charitable institutions, and service clubs. The province’s
contribution was designed to reduce rent for lower-income groups
through a grant of up to 10 per cent of the value of the housing
project. Moreover, it would be possible to lease land from the prov-
ince’s land bank to such groups if a suitable site were available. The
ministry also offered to provide technical assistance for the development
and management of the project.

The totality of federal and provincial assistance might very well
mean a 110 per cent mortgage, or a 90 per cent mortgage and 20
additional percentage points of outright grants contributed equally by
the two levels of government. In return, the Ontario ministry expected
such groups to make available up to 25 per cent of theit dwellings for
rental to families requiring rents-geared-to-income, that is those eligible
to be placed on the public housing waiting lists. On its part, the
ministry created a special branch for community-sponsored housing
with an allocation of $4 million for the first fiscal year. Since the federal
government had already allocated $75 million, this meant that over
$79 million would be available to assist in the development of some
2,000 housing units in 1974 with additional starts expected in 1975.
For the most part community-sponsored housing would serve the
moderate-income rather than the lowest-income groups. A total of 23
applications were received between September 1974 and March 31,
1975, representing 2,528 dwelling units. At the end of fiscal 1974,
2,383 units had been approved among which 1,258 were recommended
for inclusion in the rent supplement program.*4

In the 1975/76 fiscal year 35 projects, representing a total of 2,274
units, were approved for provincial funding — 909 were included in
the rent supplement program. For the first time a breakdown of “client
groups” was provided as follows: neighbourhood groups and co-
operatives, 14 projects for 573 units; charitable groups, 9 projects

120 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

for 1,070-units; and, the City of Toronto Non-Profit Housing Corpora-
tion, 12 projects for 631 units. Of the 2,274 dwellings, 928 were for
families, 1,160 were for senior citizens, and 189 were hostel units.5?

OTHER NEW INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS IN ONTARIO

More than two years prior to the initiation of the Ministry of
Housing the OHC had introduced a Rent Supplement Program whereby
would-be tenants for public housing could be placed in privately-owned
accommodation by agreement with the landlord.®* If an agreement on
a total rental acceptable to the corporation could be reached, selected
tenants would pay the normal rent calculated on the appropriate scale
for their income, and the difference between the landlord’s market
expectation and the rental capacity of the tenant would be made up
by public funds on the following basis: 50 per cent federal, 42.5 per
cent provincial, and 7.5 per cent municipal. (This was the basis for
all subsidized public housing accommodation.) By mid-1974 the OHC
had reached agreements throughout the province covering more than
2,600 dwelling units.>*

The great advantage of this program is that low-income families are
interspersed in the community with other families, often in single
detached or semi-detached houses; and, to a significant degree in
Metropolitan Toronto, in multiple dwellings. The obvious disadvantage
of a rent-supplement program is that it does not add to the total
housing stock but allocates a portion of existing housing to lower~-
income groups. At a time of inordinate tightness in the housing market,
when vacancies in multiple dwellings are as low as one per cent (as
was the case in Metro Toronto in the fall of 1974, again in 1976 and
throughout 1979), there is little or no incentive for landlords to enter
into such agreements. Nevertheless, many property management organ-
izations, which are allied with large development firms, do co-operate
with the OHC in this program; presumably they have so many varied
relationships within the several housing programs in the province that
such co-operation assists in the continuance of favourable relationships,
including mortgage financing.

The new ministry declared in mid-1974 that it recognized the
significance of conserving and improving the existing housing stock.
Housing Ontario ’74 stated that the province’s housing stock was
relatively new, with more than 60 per cent of owner-occupied dwellings
having been built since 1940. Most of the older dwellings are concen-
trated in the heart of the larger urban centres, as well as in a number
of smaller cities and towns; moreover, they are for the most part
occupied by lower-income groups. The Ontario Home Renewal Pro-

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 121

gram (OHRP) which was announced by the ministry to begin in
September 1974 would take advantage of the federally-sponsored
Neighbourhood Improvement Program (NIP) to which the province
contributed 25 per cent, and the related federat program known as
Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP). Ontario, how-
ever, decided to extend its own financial aid to areas not covered by
NIP and RRAP.

OHRP could be used in three different types of home-renewal
activity. It would be possible to provide financial supplements for
homeowners participating in the federal rehabilitation program. In the
second place, the provincial funds would finance programs emphasizing
structural repairs and sanitary improvements in geographical areas not
covered by federal programs. Finally, Ontario hoped to finance pro-
grams of exterior improvement in predominantly low and moderate
income neighbourhoods. It was estimated that about 3,750 dwellings
might benefit from the federal-provincial home rehabilitation program
during 1974.

In fiscal 1974, thirty-five Ontario Municipalities were allotted a total
of $17 million by the federal government in its Neighbourhood Improve-
ment Program.®® A year later thirty-three municipalities were allocated
a total of $15 million in federal funds. All of the municipalities referred
to were selected by the Community Renewal Branch of the Ministry of
Housing in consultation with the Provincial/Municipal Liaison Com-
mittee and CMHC.*°

In the first annual report of the ministry the reference to the Federal
Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP) and the pro-
vincial Ontario Home Renewal Program (OHRP) was largely explana-
tory. In fact, under OHRP 133 municipalities received $10.1 million
to administer directly as loans to owner-occupants whose “adjusted
annual family income” did not exceed $12,500. Applicants could
borrow up to $7,500 from a participating municipality primarily for
the repair of faulty structural and sanitary conditions, and the upgrading
of plumbing, heating and electrical systems.*7 In 1975/76 the total
amount awarded to 362 participating municipalities exceeded $15.2
million. Two regional governments, twenty-nine cities, eighty-four
towns and thirty-eight villages participated in OHRP along with 177
townships and districts. By the end of the fiscal year 1977/78, 558
municipalities had entered the program.®§

The third significant innovation (expatiated for the first time in
Housing Ontario ’74) took the form of a new thrust in the field of land
assembly. The Government of Ontario expected to bring forward, late
in 1974, legislation to establish an Ontario Land Corporation, which
would assume financing and other responsibilities in connection with
the land holdings of the province.®® The ministry was determined to

122 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

strengthen the role of local governments in many of these fields, and
in the case of land acquisition it was committed to empower local
governments to engage directly in the activity. In the first instance such
powers were delegated through regional governments and thus to local
governments within the eleven regional municipalities established in
Ontario in recent years, Again, the province insisted that it must be
assured that the local municipality would have available a prepared
housing policy statement and that its land assembly proposals would
be compatible with the overall housing policies and production goals of
the province.

Nevertheless, regional governments are not in existence over much
of the province (although they cover a large proportion of its total
population) and those existing may in fact not wish to assume some
or all of these responsibilities. In such cases the ministry would bear
the direct responsibility or enter into agreements with local munici-
palities within or outside regions to enable them to carry out the
program. However, an amendment to the Housing Development Act
1948, was put forward late in 1974 to enable a municipal council to
acquire and hold land within the municipality for a housing project,
including the preparation or disposal of the land for housing purposes.
To make this possible the municipality must have an official plan in
which a housing provision is encompassed or must have a statement of
housing policy. In either case approval by the Ministry of Housing
would be required regardless of the source of funds for land purchase.°°

DECENTRALIZATION OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR
HOUSING POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION

The Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy was clearly concerned
with the role of the municipalities and their attitudes as they affected
the implementation of housing policies during recent years. Their
report stated:

Crucial to the implementation and success of the program would be
the actual production performance at the local level. This is not only
of significance to the housing development program but also to the
provincial regional development program. Policy which is made at the
provincial level can be frustrated at the local level, and the reverse
also takes place. The task force is convinced that some method which
has a chance of guaranteeing local as well as provincial performance
should be instituted. The recommended approach is for a system of
comprehensive long-term provincial-regional-local agreements on jointly
developed programs, supported by financial incentives and financial
sanctions . . . The municipalities in the province are generally con-
cerned about their housing situation, are unable to cope with its

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 123

problems, recognize that it is the province’s responsibility to deal with
housing, and are by and large willing to co-operate to find a way of
solving their housing problems.

Ready reception will be given by municipalities to financial assistance
for services and community facilities; equally acceptable will be
assisted housing programs for moderate-income families, such as the
leased-lot program; senior citizen housing is also well received by
municipalities. Subsidized family housing is less acceptable under
present conditions. To the extent that this results from anticipated
financial difficulties, this situation will have to be changed for many
municipalities to begin to accept their share of responsibility. In addi-
tion to financial incentives, the municipalities and their residents should
be called upon to take the initiative in dealing with their subsidized
housing needs in the way that suits them best, rather than resist
provincial efforts to provide housing for people in their community.

The recommendations for the “delegation of housing responsibilities
to Metropolitan Toronto and other municipalities” stated clearly,

Where municipalities are willing and able to undertake the responsibility
for planning, developing and managing assisted-housing programs, this
responsibility should be delegated to them. This should be based on
the adoption of a joint plan for assisted housing which sets out the
provincial and municipal housing objectives and how they are to be
implemented, and the financial arrangements and sanctions to be used
to secure municipal performance of the agreed targets. Relegation of
responsibility for assisted-housing programs should allow for local
circumstances and for suitable transition agreements. In many areas
of Ontario, particularly in communities with little assisted-housing
activity, the responsibility will remain with the province. OHC’s duties
should expand in those areas.

This responsibility should be delegated in the first instance to Metro-
politan Toronto, which has nearly half the provincial stock of assisted
housing, is willing to assume this responsibility, and has extensive
experience and resources for planning, developing and managing
housing.®?

A decade after the formation of the OHC the question of local
responsibility had in substantial measure completed a full circle. The
Ontario Advisory Task Force Report became the basis of the statements
in Housing Ontario ’74. This initial statement of policies and programs
of the new Ministry of Housing contained several significant references
to local responsibilities which, taken together, make the clear point
that the government of Ontario was firmly committed to increasing
decentralization, at least in terms of the implementation of housing
policies. The ministry was committed to

delegating to regional and municipal governments those powers and
responsibilities which can be more efficiently discharged at the local

124 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

level . . . encouraging the direct participation of community groups

and municipalities in the production and management of low-cost

housing.®*
To ensure this, Housing Ontario ’74 indicated clearly that municipalities
would be required to submit to the ministry statements of housing
policy that would include production targets and levels of funding. In
addition, the ministry would provide financial assistance to municipali-
ties in preparing these policy statements.** Thus, housing policy, as far
as the new ministry was concerned, involved some release of the firm
grip which the OHC had developed in the previous decade, in favour
of a renewed assumption of responsibility by those governments
allegedly closest to the people in their communities and presumably
more aware of individual and family needs and local requirements.

As far as the production of assisted rental housing for low-income
families and senior citizens is concerned, the ministry proceeded rapidly
with its avowed program of decentralization. Throughout 1975 and
1976 a number of changes were made in administrative practices to
enable existing and newly created local housing authorities to carry out
responsibilities previously carried at the head office in Toronto. At the
same time a special committee on public housing management was
engaged in discussions with regional governments and “municipalities
at all levels in conjunction with the program to reorganize the systems
of local housing authorities.”* After two years or more of detailed
discussions, many new LHAs were created where none existed pre-
viously, others were created for the first time within the scope of
regional governments, and still others involved widening the geo-
graphical area of responsibility together with the elimination of small
existing authorities.®*

Early in 1977 the ministry announced, as a part of its longer-term
plan for housing operations in Ontario, that it would offer municipali-
ties two avenues of approach in the future. From 1964, for more
than a dozen years, municipalities passed a resolution of council
requesting a need-and-demand study for housing; and, the OHC (and
later the ministry) implemented the requested survey. A recommenda-
tion would then be made to the local council for a certain number of
family or senior citizen dwelling units and council would accept or
reject the recommendation. When such recommendations were accepted,
the OHC and the ministry carried out all the responsibilities of design,
tendering, award of contracts, inspection of construction, and ultimately,
takeover of the completed structure(s), At that point the operation
and management of the building became the responsibility of either a
local housing authority or the direct management branch of the OHC.
In its 1977 announcement the ministry agreed to permit this sequence
to continue, if the municipalities so wished, with the caveat that the

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 125

ministry expected local housing authorities to cover all areas of the
province before the end of the decade; thus direct management by
OHC would cease.

The ministry, at the same time, provided local governments with an
opportunity to assume much greater responsibility for the housing
program within its jurisdiction. If the municipality decided not to
follow the traditional route, it could notify the ministry that it chose,
within its housing policy statement and/or approved official plan, to
proceed more or less on its own. In this case, it was required to
purchase the requisite land (within price guidelines set by the two
senior levels of government), hire an architect or equivalent profes-
sional to create a design, call for tenders, and award contracts under
its own supervision. Once again, however, the local government must
abide by certain senior governmental price guidelines for housing con-
struction within the federal-provincial-municipal subsidy system. Thus,
the municipality would borrow 90 per cent from CMHC and provide
the additional 10 per cent of capital, rather than the province; the
subsidy system would remain as before — federal 50 per cent, provincial
42% per cent, and municipal 7/2 per cent, unless the price guidelines
were exceeded,

By late 1974 there were already two significant policy statements
published and available for study. The first required formulation of
housing policy was issued by the City of Toronto in December 1973.
It is clear from the analysis presented that this document was not
prepared in response to the initiatives of the Premier of Ontario in
creating the Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy. It is also clear,
by virtue of its timing, that it antedated the initial policy statement of
the new Ministry of Housing. The fact is that within the “reform
council” elected in the City of Toronto in December 1972, there were
a number of interested and well-informed new councillors who were
encouraged by the mayor to study the entire question of the role of
the city in the housing field. The opening page of the city’s document
Stating: “It’s time for Toronto to get back into the housing business”,
was extracted from the inaugural address of the mayor to city council
at the beginning of its two-year term on January 3, 1973. Thus, although
the report is dated December, it fortuitously became the policy docu-
ment which, the Ministry of Housing insisted some months later, must
be prepared if a local government is to receive the delegated authority
and financial assistance available from the province.

The City of Toronto’s policy statement, described in the letter of
transmission as “a proposed interim housing strategy”, was prepared
by a housing work group composed of members of city council and
senior officials of several city departments. It is extremely interesting
from a policy point of view because it not only encompassed almost

126 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

every phase of a housing program, but, moreover, made it very clear
that the City of Toronto was a governmental entity capable of imple-
menting such a program.

It is not germane to this discussion to emphasize all the specifics of
this policy statement but a number of interesting departures from past
policies and programs throughout Canada, or at least new emphases
within existing programs, are worthy of note. In the first statement of
“goals”, for example, the report included the following.

The development of the capability of community-based non-profit
corporations as producers of housing, to allow greater community
involvement in the planning and operation of housing projects and
thereby avoid confrontation and rejection of high density assisted
housing imposed from above. . . .58

This was, indeed, a completely unsupported statement, since there was
at the time little evidence of the capacity of non-profit corporations to
produce substantial numbers of dwelling units. It does imply that the
city would continue to obstruct the efforts of the OHC to produce
large numbers of dwelling units for low-income families, the greatest
number of whom actually reside in the city within Metropolitan
Toronto. It is understandable, therefore, that the public and the media
became incensed over the fact that in the first nine months of 1974
Metro Toronto in comparison with thousands, two or three years
few more than sixty dwelling units of public housing were started in
previously.

The document includes numerical targets and a clear enunciation of
the work group’s concept of the “city’s role in housing”:

That the city explicitly adopt the role of co-ordinator of all housing
programs implemented in the city and that the federal, provincial and
metropolitan government be asked to concur in the housing program
set out in. . . this report.6?

This may very well be the strongest exposition of local government
intent put forward in Canada during the past quarter-century. It calls
for a reversal of past housing policies in which the federal-provincial
partnership and its successors (after 1964) would no longer have the
right to put forward programs to be implemented, following an exam-
ination by the planning board and approval by city council, without
further reference (except in the case of technical matters) to the city
and its staff.

In brief, the City of Toronto was asking:

— for legislation and financial assistance to produce 4,000 new

dwelling units per annum during 1974 and 1975;

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 127

~ that the city be permitted to enter the field of land banking with
a proposed expenditure of $10 million during the first year, 90
per cent of which would be provided under Section 42 of the
NHA;

— that the city would embark upon a public non-profit housing
program with legislative authority to be derived from the province
to enable it to establish “a city-owned, non-profit corporation”,
and with the further request that the province pass legislation
enabling the city or its non-profit corporation to build housing
without seeking individual project approval;

~ that the city would commit $250,000 in 1974 and in 1975 for
rehabilitation grants and loans to pay the material costs of the
house repair groups if funding of labour costs were available
under the Local Initiatives Program;* and,

~ that the city council would urge the metropolitan corporation to
assume full responsibility for the production and operation of the
traditional public housing program.”°

As 1974 drew to a close, the city had realized a number of its
specific objectives. A new Department of Housing had been created
within the civic administration and the first Commissioner of Housing
had been named.’ The city had also created its own non-profit housing
corporation and was actively seeking suitable homes for acquisition
and rehabilitation in a number of downtown neighbourhoods. The land
banking program was approved by CMHC and funds were available
to enable the new Department of Housing to undertake appropriate
purchases,

However, during the first year of the new housing program no public
housing was initiated let alone produced by the Department of Housing;
moreover, there was no indication that any Toronto family was accom-
modated in housing, new or old, acquired, produced or rehabilitated
under the new program. In short, the first year of the two-year program
passed without any numerical increase to the public housing stock. In
defence, however, the tooling-up process, required in 1974, did mean
substantial progress in 1975 and 1976. It is often the case that the
writers of a policy document underestimate the time involved in
developing essential arrangements.

The Housing Department issued a progress report early in 1975.72
The commissioner reported in detail the substantial planning which
was required in 1974 to translate the projected targets of Living Room
into reality within the housing market. A great deal was accomplished

*Local Initiatives was a federally funded program to stimulate employ-
ment via municipal projects.

128 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

in that first year, not merely in organizing the department but in
detailed studies of projected programs of land banking, non-profit
housing (both new construction and acquisition and renovation of
older housing), and in developing relationships with authorities respon-
sible for senior citizens housing and private housing production.

The first year was a year of study, of projection and initiation. In
the City Land Banking Program, for example, four sites were identified
amounting to more than 330,000 sq. ft. at a probable total price of
nearly $2.9 million. On this land, the department projected 409 family
dwelling units, and 246 non-family units. It expected that these projects
would all be underway in 1975 or 1976 and would be completed for
the most part in 1977-78. In two of the four cases zoning changes were
required.7* Similarly, programs were projected for the City Non-Profit
New Housing Program, 1975. Fifteen sites, 271 family units and 687
non-family units were proposed with a total land and construction cost
of nearly $24.3 million. In addition, the department identified, in co-
operation with the Metro Parking Authority, six parking lot sites upon
which an additional 131 family and 589 non-family units could be
developed. Some of these latter proposals were under construction by
mid-1977.74

The return of the City of Toronto to a direct active role in the
housing field in 1974 was not achieved without serious administrative,
organizational, and financial difficulties. A consulting firm examined
the organizational needs of the Housing Department and submitted its
final report to the mayor at the end of April 1975. The consultants
emphasized the special difficulties of developing a housing department
in a large Canadian urban centre within the complexities of inter-
governmental legislation and a public-private housing market. The
report argued that the task of continuing to develop the city’s non-profit
housing at the current rate would be difficult. The report alleged that
the department, by and large, had neglected the non-profit private
sector organizations which had built 724 dwelling units in 1974 and
were expected to create at least 700 per annum. “Although the depart-
ment intended to work closely with the group, and designated (staff)
positions for the purpose, it has devoted little effort to assisting this
sector.’””76

The problem of devising satisfactory property management operations
was emphasized in the report of the consultants. They alleged that
there had been a failure to market the city’s housing and that project
managers and maintenance services were overloaded. While the city’s
programs provided mixed housing at both market and below-market
levels, many low-income families found the city’s market rents too high.
At the time of the study 900 families were on the waiting list and the
majority required below-market rentals. Although the city owned a

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 129

mere 700 units at the time of the submission, city project managers
were said to be over loaded with routine tasks and yet an additional
600-800 dwellings would be added before the end of the year.’?

There can be little doubt that Toronto’s housing department has
been substantially strengthened since the spring of 1975 and that the
operations of the department are considered a “model” of what can be
done by a large urban community within the framework of federal-
provincial legislation, programs and financial resources. The City of
Toronto was one of the first municipalities in Canada to establish a
non-profit housing corporation to take advantage of the new programs
and has provided 1,800 units of accommodation since 1973.78

METROPOLITAN TORONTO’S INTERIM HOUSING POLICY

The recommendation (in Living Room) that the public housing
program in Metro Toronto should be the “full responsibility” of the
metropolitan corporation appeared during 1974 to be a major contra-
diction, in consideration of the other features of the proposed City of
Toronto program. Furthermore, a serious conflict emerged when the
Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto issued its own Interim Metro
Housing Policy in May 1974.7* Not only was this report a strong
challenge to the proposed policy initiatives of the city, but the amend-
ments passed by the provincial legislature in the early summer made
it very clear that Metro would have the full responsibility for public
housing. It is normally routine for a series of minor amendments to be
made by the legislature each year to both the Municipality of Metro-
politan Toronto Act and the City of Toronto Act. In 1974, however,
many of the proposals were extremely important and contentious.

As far as housing policy was concerned, both the elected and
appointed senior officials of the city and five boroughs within Metro
alleged that Paul Godfrey, chairman of the Metropolitan Council, had
negotiated secretly with cabinet ministers and senior officials to effect
amendments which were not known in advance to the complainants.
They argued that the matter of responsibility for housing policy was
one of these secret arrangements. Although the Metro chairman denied
this, the fact is that the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act was
amended as follows.

198a.-(1) The Metropolitan Council and the council of any area
municipality may, by by-law by the Minister of Housing,
adopt a policy statement related to housing, containing
specific objectives, production targets and financial ar-
rangements.

130 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

(2) Where a policy statement referred to in subsection (1)
has been adopted by the Metropolitan Council and ap-
proved by the Minister of Housing, every housing policy
statement that has been adopted by the council of an area
municipality shall be amended forthwith to conform
therewith and no housing policy statement of an area
municipality shall thereafter be approved that does not
conform with the housing policy statement of the Metro-
politan Council and no by-law shall be passed by the
Metropolitan Council or by the council of an area muni-
cipality that does not conform with the housing policy
statement of the Metropolitan Council.8°

Metro’s own policy statement is labelled as a “draft” as well as an
“interim document”, and the issuing authority for the full report is
listed as the “Office of the Metropolitan Chairman”, The work of the
document (issued some five months after the policy statement by the
City of Toronto) is attributed to a “staff committee” which is reported
to have spent a considerable amount of time on the question of
appropriate production targets for Metro and the area municipalities.
The “staff committee” turned out to be a group of officials representing
the CMHC, the Ministry of Housing of Ontario, the departmental staff
of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto with an additional con-
sultant,** and certain other staff members representing each of the area
municipalities.

The Ministry of Housing had stated that it would devolve responsi-
bility for implementation of housing policy to local governments within
recently constituted regional governments by the process of turning
over responsibility in the first instance to the regional government or
upper level in each case. Metropolitan Toronto is conceived as a
regional government for these purposes, and antedates any other
regional government in the province by at least fifteen years. The
Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto began its policy statement by
assuming that authority would be decentralized through the Metro-
politan Council to the area municipalities: the five boroughs and the
City of Toronto. It emphasized what it called “the concept of a shared
responsibility for housing”, and outlined a proposed system of con-
sultation on all aspects of planning, land acquisition, construction and
management of assisted housing in the metropolitan area.

It is not surprising, given the composition of the committee, that the
interim policy statement of Metro Toronto bears a strong resemblance
to that of the City of Toronto. The major exception was that all the
responsibilities to be assumed by the city as outlined in its own policy
document were now to be assumed by the Metropolitan corporation.
Tn turn, such responsibilities would be assigned to the city or other

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 131

area municipality within Metro after consultation and agreement that
the local municipality (within the second tier of local government in
Metro) had the necessary capability of assuming such responsibilities.

The report proposed a target of 20,000 new housing starts annually
in the form of 14,000 apartment and 6,000 non-apartment dwellings.
In addition, 8,000 low- and moderate-income units would be produced
annually but it is not clear whether this figure was part of the afore-
mentioned 20,000 new housing starts or over and above that total.
Moreover, an objective of 1,000 rehabilitated dwelling units on an
annual basis was affirmed.

The Metro report dealt with the familiar subjects that are part and
parcel of the total housing problem and the overall housing program
in Canada. The major policy initiatives put forward were two-fold. In
the first place, Metro stated that it was ready to assume the manage-
ment of OHC dwelling units and that such responsibility would be
delegated later to area municipalities, as requested.*? Secondly, the
Metropolitan corporation was ready to assume administrative control
and the placement of all tenants in rent-geared-to-income housing
through a tenant placement bureau located in the Metropolitan Toronto
Department of Social Services.

In order to accomplish these goals and specific targets the report
estimated the yearly land banking requirements to be $25 to $35
million. In addition, the yearly program assistance from the two senior
levels of government was estimated to be between $200 and $250
million - a possible grand total of nearly $300 million “to be invested
... to help relieve . . . housing problems chiefly in the area of social
housing.”83

It is not difficult to “poke holes” in the Metro document and to
indicate its inconsistencies. The annual program of the OHC had never
exceeded $150 million. It is hardly likely, in view of the determination
of the CMHC to assist all provinces in line with their respective capa-
bilities, that the two senior levels would allocate approximately $250
million annually solely for Metropolitan Toronto. The curious indica-
tion that Metro would take over responsibility for tenant placement by
locating a tenant placement bureau within the Department of Social
Services is surely an affirmation that all applicants for public housing
were desperately poor; thus, they would best be treated by social
service workers whose main preoccupations were the determination of
eligibility for financial assistance and assistance with problems of social
functioning.

The Metro policy statement included, as did that of the city, an
indication that there should be a Department of Housing within the
municipality, to be headed by a senior official. Metro also wished to

132 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

form a non-profit housing company, although it had, for about fifteen
years, maintained the Metro Toronto Housing Company Limited — a
limited dividend housing company created under the original Section 16
of the NHA 1954 — for the purpose of constructing and managing
housing for senior citizens. At the close of 1974, however, a Metro
housing department had not been created and no senior official had
been appointed. Neither had a Metro non-profit housing company been
created under the terms of the Housing Development Act of Ontario,
nor did it appear that there was any strong demand for the implementa-
tion of these recommendations.*4

The explanation for the relatively rapid progress in implementing the
City of Toronto’s policy statement and the lack of progress on the
part of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto may lie in the pre-
viously mentioned conflict concerning amendments to the Municipality
of Metropolitan Toronto Act. The amendments of late June 1974,
clearly made it necessary for any area municipality, including the City
of Toronto, to develop a housing policy in conformity with that of
Metropolitan council. On the day the amendments to the act were
proclaimed by the Ontario government Karl Jaffary, of the executive
committee of the City of Toronto, moved before the Metropolitan
executive committee that legislation be sought to amend the Munici-
pality of Metropolitan Toronto Act

. «80 as to provide that no housing policy adopted by the Metropolitan
council shall affect the official plan provisions of any area municipality
or the responsibility of the area municipality for land use planning
and the passage of zoning by-laws.°*

In addition, the chairman of the City of Toronto’s Housing Work
Group, a local councillor, submitted a statement to the executive
committee to the city in mid-June, in which he stated,

It appears to be obvious that the Metro chairman’s co-operative
approach is preferable to the element of compulsion contained in the
bill. If there is to be a Metropolitan housing policy, it should be the
product of co-operation and consultation. If it is to be a tool to coerce
area municipalities to take specific actions, then the representatives of
all the area municipalities who sit on Metro Council may find that it
is not in their interest to have Metro adopt any housing policy.8¢

The ultimate result of these submissions and contentions was a
recommendation by the Metropolitan Executive Committee that its
solicitor be authorized and directed to make application to the Province
of Ontario for amending legislation to repeal subsection 2 of Section
198(a), a section that had just been enacted within the Municipality of

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 133

Metropolitan Toronto Act. The executive committee further recom-
mended that the province adopt a policy of submitting proposed
amendments to the governing legislation to the Metropolitan council
for consideration prior to submission to the legislature. In short, the
executive committee was convinced that Chairman Paul Godfrey had
worked to amend the basic legislation without reference to Metropolitan
Council.8*

This detailed exposition of the development of housing policies
within Metropolitan Toronto indicates the conflicts in the struggle for
power over the implementation of housing policies and programs as
the federal and provincial governments attempted to decentralize within
this field. It was not that the OHC had determined to stop its program
or to cease production while decentralization was effected; but, in the
view of local politicians, there appeared to be a power vacuum into
which both the area municipalities within a region or a metropolitan
government, and the upper tier of regional government wished to move
simultaneously. There are important lessons here for all major metro-
politan areas in Canada, particularly Vancouver, Winnipeg, and
Montreal which have developed further in the field of metropolitan
government than any municipality other than Toronto.

Nevertheless, after careful study of the allocations and responsibilities
for housing policy within Metropolitan Toronto, John P. Robarts made
several major recommendations in his mid-1977 report to the Govern-
ment of Ontario, all of which were designed to strengthen the resolve
of Metro to accept responsibilities which the province was clearly
willing to allocate to major regional governments, after appropriate
negotiation. These recommendations were:

Recommendation 12.2 The Metropolitan council, in consultation

with the area municipalities, be responsible for establishing housing

targets as part of a comprehensive Metropolitan housing policy, and
for the allocation of these targets among the area municipalities.

Recommendation 12.3 Metropolitan housing objectives be im-
plemented through the planning powers of the Metropolitan council.
Recommendation 12.4 The Metropolitan council gradually as-

sume responsibility for the existing housing stock of the Ontario
Housing Corporation in Metropolitan Toronto.
Recommendation 12.5 The Metropolitan council be responsible
for the direct provision of all low-income family and senior citizen
housing in Metropolitan Toronto, and delegate this responsibility to
any area municipality willing and able to undertake it.°*
If these recommendations were acceptable to the Government of
Ontario and assumed by Metropolitan council in due course, it seems
clear that Metro Toronto would be functioning like a provincial housing
corporation responsible for a population of nearly 3 million persons.

134 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

ANALYTICAL SUMMARY

A great deal of space has been devoted in this analysis to the
experience within Ontario, the evolution of its legislative and managerial
structures, and the political problems and inter-governmental in-fighting
that has characterized the situation during the past several years. The
reasons for this attention are simply that Ontario has accounted since
1964 for 70 per cent of all new public housing dwelling units financed
through Section 43 of the NHA. The OHC initiated more new programs
in the overall housing field than any other provincial corporation, and
the province encountered problems and difficulties which should pro-
vide important lessons for other provinces. Whatever the experience in
Ontario, the other provinces have not kept pace; for instance, from
1964-73 Quebec accounted for a mere 15.5 per cent of all new public
housing dwellings financed under Section 43.

The argument is not intended to deny regional differences, regional
preferences, and deliberate and clearly defined policies and programs
within other provinces. It is difficult, however, to ignore the fact that
almost twice as much housing activity, proportionate to population, has
occurred on behalf of low-income groups in Ontario than in other
provinces. When all programs are taken into consideration about 80
per cent of all governmental housing activity had been mounted during
the years since 1964 in Ontario, which has about 40 per cent of
Canada’s population.

The other provinces, which argued before the federal Task Force on
Housing and Urban Development in 1968-69 that the only way they
could proceed to meet the needs of their residents would be through a
diversion of federal funds from Ontario to the rest of the country, have
proved conclusively that their arguments were false. The resources have
been made available and the major applicants have not been those
provinces which claimed that they were somewhat disadvantaged by
virtue of the headstart and headlong activity of the OHC in its first
five or six years. On the basis of statistical evidence, the will to develop
major and innovative housing programs on behalf of low-income groups
in some provinces appears to be weak or lacking.

. Nevertheless, the record in Ontario is by no means entirely without
flaw. Any analysis must begin with the totality of dwelling starts and
completions (whether under private or public auspices) over a period
of years. Dwelling starts in Ontario rose steadily from 1970 through
1973 reaching more than 110,000 in the latter year. Over the next
three years the drop was equally dramatic, amounting to more than
20 per cent from 1973 through 1974; the recovery in Canada in 1975
and 1976 was not matched in either absolute or relative terms within
the province of Ontario.®*

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 135

It has been contended in the Ontario legislature that the annual
percentage increase im housing starts m Ontario has lagged behind the
national average since 1970 and the gap is widening. In 1975 Ontario
experienced a decrease of 5.7 per cent in urban housing starts over
1974 while nationally, excluding Ontario, there was an increase of
16.6 per cent. While Ontario had an increase of 5.4 per cent in 1976,
the national increase was 15.3 per cent.*°

The Minister of Housing, in 1977, predicted a further drop of about
4,700 housing starts to a total of 80,000 — approximately 28 per cent
below the 1973 figure. On the other hand, the Conference Board of
Canada forecast 72,800 starts for Ontario in 1977. In terms of the
total housing effort, therefore, it it contended that Ontario has fallen
behind and that the Ministry of Housing failed to take advantage of all
financial funding available from the federal government through CMHC.

Ontario has, without question, implemented the most important
recommendations put forward by the Advisory Task Force of 1973
and has implemented most of the proposals of its policy statement,
Housing Ontario ’74. There can be little question that the provincial
government has taken seriously its responsibilities in housing. In a
huge province with a growing population it may well be facing an
impossible task. The downturn in economic activity which commenced
in late 1975 affected entrepreneurial investment in all phases of con-
struction in Ontario. The downward spiral of lessening investment,
lessening employment and lessening demand for new housing for
purchase resulted in a substantial number of completed housing units
not being sold in 1977-79 — this sequence alone may account in large
measure for the continued decline in housing starts.

Ontario is also the preferred location of about half of all newcomers
to Canada. Many immigrants maintain the ownership of property and
particularly the ownership of their own homes as a fundamental aspira-
tion. The great majority of newcomers are neither particularly interested
in assisted rental housing under private or public auspices. They have
tended to strengthen the shift in public housing within Metropolitan
Toronto and throughout the province, from the construction of rental
housing for low-income families to the provision of housing for senior
citizens. This latter trend is fully documented in a later chapter.**

Despite the allegation that Ontario has not made full use of available
federal resources, the fact is that financial considerations are an increas-
ingly important constraint in the development of housing for low-
income individuals and families in the province. If traditional housing
for families and senior citizens only is examined, there were nearly
85,000 dwelling units in 310 municipalities under management late in
1979.° If units acquired under agreements within the Rent Supplement
Program (44 municipalities), Community Integrated Housing Program

136 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

(9 municipalities), Limited-Dividend Program (18 municipalities), the
Accelerated Rental Housing Program, (27 municipalities) and the
Assisted Rental Housing Program (30 municipalities), are counted, an
additional 8,977 dwellings were occupied in November 1979.°* Under
modest assumptions of increasing numbers of dwelling units in all of
these programs, it can be estimated that Ontario will have between
110,000 and 125,000 units under administration in 1985. The total
number of people housed in such accommodation would be in the
vicinity of 350,000 — 375,000.

This creditable performance is not without financial considerations
which are worrisome to some members in all parties in the provincial
legislature. Rising costs of construction together with stable incomes
among applicants for socially-assisted housing have meant enormous
per unit, per month subsidies in comparison with the past. In 1970 the
total subsidy paid within Ontario was $26.8 million, of which the
provincial share was $10.9 million. By 1975 the total subsidy had
increased to $122.6 million, with the provincial share amounting to
$50.6 million. The estimated number of dwelling units under adminis-
tration in 1985 of 110,000 or more could mean a total subsidy in the
neighbourhood of $325 — $335 million, of which the provincial share
would be about $145 million. Such figures would mean that the
subsidies alone would have risen between 1975 and 1985 from less
than a fifth of the budget of the Ministry of Housing to more than
40 per cent.

In a huge province with high gross family incomes and an impressive
gross provincial product, an annual housing subsidy approaching $150
million does not appear to be burdensome. But the fact is that some
legislators and many people who have struggled on their own to
acquire housing accommodation feel that this subsidy level is becoming
burdensome. Moreover, it is emphasized that such subsidies continue
during the entire period of debt repayment, usually fifty years, and that
the total can only increase substantially during the balance of the
century in response to inflation, unemployment, and the perpetuation
of poverty in an affluent society.

It would appear, therefore, that Ontario’s vast housing program will
be under severe financial and philosophical examination in successive
fiscal years. In the early 1980s the budget of the Ministry of Housing
had not kept pace with increases in either the provincial budget as a
whole, or the general price level. The government in power clearly
wishes to restrain all public spending; there will be no exception for
the field of housing. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that the
general public believes that government has gone about as far as it
should in its intervention in the housing market in Ontario. This is

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 137

one meaning inherent in the process of decentralization of responsibility
to local areas beginning in the late 1970s.

NOTES

1The Ontario Housing Corporation Act, R.S.O., 1970, c. 317.
*R.S.0., 1970, c. 213, as amended by 1972, c. 129 and 1974, c. 31.

8In the mid-1970s Ontario devised new housing programs which required
the allocation of provincial funds without federal participation. These funds
were made available without recourse to the borrowing powers of the
Ontario Housing Corporation.

4By 1976 the Government of Ontario was committed to the development
of local or regional housing authorities throughout the province; thus the
“direct management” function was reduced substantially (within three
years), except in Metro Toronto.

5In February 1977 the Ministry of Housing changed these administrative
arrangements by giving municipalities a further option: constructing the
housing itself (with OHC technical guidance, if required) with a federal
loan of 90 per cent and local capital participation of 10 per cent. In any
event, localities were, in the future, to acquire and zone land, whatever the
development route to be followed.

‘The Ontario Student Housing Corporation was formally dissolved in
June 1978.

7Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Report (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer, August 1973) p. 1.

8Ibid., p. 1.
*[bid., p. 7.
WI bid., pp. 2-3.
UJbid., p. 106.

12%t is difficult to be certain because the provinces are slow in issuing
annual reports of their housing activities, but it appeared in 1977 that the
Ministry of Housing in Ontario was the only one with that exclusive
responsibility. In both British Columbia and Newfoundland the ministry is
entitled, Municipal Affairs and Housing. In other provinces responsibility
for housing is assigned to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (Alberta), the
Ministry of Urban Affairs (Manitoba), and the Ministry of Labour (New
Brunswick), among others.

13Report, op. cit., pp. 107-108.
147 bid., p. 109.

15[n mid-1977 there were 49 housing authorities. A number of new
authorities had been created in 1975-76 on a county, regional or sub-

138 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)
regional basis. In this process several small existing authorities were
absorbed.

16Report, op. cit., p. 11.

1Idem.

18Infra., pp. 173-178.

19Ibid., pp. 46-51.

20Tbid., pp. 95-96.

21bid., pp. 97-99.

221 bid., pp. 99-100.

231bid., pp. 103-104.

4Ibid., pp. 96-97.

23Ibid., pp. 13-14.

6[bid., pp. 69-90.

*"Ibid., p. 70.

*8Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, “Report of the Ontario Advisory
Task Force on Housing Policy, August 1973” (Toronto: mimeographed,
January 9th, 1974) pp. 1-2.

*°Ministry of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs.

8°Ontario, Statement by the Honourable William G. Davis, Premier of
Ontario, to the Legislature, On Housing (Toronto: October 2, 1973) p. 6.

81Qntario, “Explanatory Notes”, The Ministry of Housing Act, 1973, p. 2.

82QOntario, Ministry of Housing, Housing Ontario ’74 (Toronto: May
1974).

331 bid., p. 2.
84]bid., p. 2.
881 bid., Table 1. See “Appendix Tables”.

36In 1977 many large homes and certain older apartment buildings in
older districts in the City of Toronto were broken up into “bachelorettes” of
about 350-400 square feet.

87Housing Ontario ’74, p. 3.
88[bid., pp. 13-14.
89] bid., p. 15.

1Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76 (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer 1976) p. 8.

“Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, p. 13.
“Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, p. 11.

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 139

48Qntario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 8.
+4Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, p. 15.
Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 9.
46] bid., pp. 16-17.

41Ibid., pp. 17-18. The HOME (Home Ownership Made Easy) Program
was an on-going activity of the OHC whereby serviced lots were made
available to builders who were required to offer completed structures at
agreed upon prices to the home buyer. In turn, the land could be purchased
outright from the OHC at book value, or leased by the purchaser at a
monthly rental for a period of five years or more. At the end of five years
the purchaser could offer to purchase the land, which would then be avail-
able at its market value. vid. Housing Ontario January/February 1976,
Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 10. 20,276 units were transferred to house buyers plus
an additional 15,008 condominium units. vid. Ministry of Housing, Annual
Report 1975/76 (Toronto: Queen’s Printer 1976) p. 25.

48Housing Ontario, op. cit., p. 13.
I bid., p. 14.

50In fact, completions of public housing dwellings for families and senior
citizens in Ontario were 6,429 in 1974, 7,060 in 1975 and 4,183 in 1976.
Cf. infra. chapter VIII.

51Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, p. 16.
52Qntario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 22.

58Under the authority of the National Housing Act, S. 44, 1973-74; vid
Ontario Housing, op. cit., p. 9.

54This figure was 8,977 units late in 1979. Ontario Housing Corporation,
Fact Sheet (as at November 30, 1979) (Toronto: OHC, mimeo., December
1979) p. 2.

55Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, p. 7.
56Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 17.
57Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1974/75, pp. 7-8.

58Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 17; Annual
Report 1977/78, p. 14. OHRP grants reached $23 million in fiscal 1978.

59Ontario Land Corporation was not in fact established within the
Ministry of Housing but within TEIGA via The Ontario Land Corporation
Act, assented to on February 14, 1975; the corporation was transferred to
the Ministry of Housing on August 31, 1978.

60Housing Ontario, op. cit., p. 12. In 1975 the federal allocation, under
Sections 40 and 42 of the NHA was $35 million to the province. The
Municipal Land Development Program received slightly more than $9
million which was made available to 13 municipalities. In February 1976
the minister announced the allocation of a further $18.3 million to 11
municipalities. See Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 21.

140 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

“Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Report (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer, 1973) p. 100.

82fbid., p. 109.
®8 Housing Ontario ’74, pp. 11-12.

®4In September 1974 the CMHC announced the first grant (the sum of
$15,000 to the Borough of Scarborough within Metro Toronto to prepare
its housing policy). A month later the Ontario Ministry of Housing
announced its first two grants to Ottawa and Peterborough.

*5Ontario, Ministry of Housing, Annual Report 1975/76, p. 27.

®6The number of Local Housing Authorities was 58 at December 31,
1979; a 59th authority was formed in January 1980.

8iLiving Room: The City of Toronto's Housing Policy. An Approach to
Home Banking and Land Banking for the City of Toronto (prepared by
the Housing Work Group, December 1973).

88Ibid., p. ii.
Lbid., p. iv.
79] bid., pp. ii-x.

“The first commissioner was Michael Dennis, co-author of Programmes
in Search of a Policy. He was the former consultant on housing on the
mayor's staff.

72City of Toronto, Housing Department, Progress Report 1974 (Toronto:
February 1975) p. 169.

“City of Toronto, Housing Department, op. cit., p. 42.
74Tbid., pp. 59-60.

The Canada Consulting Group, Continuing the Job of Building
Toronto’s Housing Department. A Report to the City of Toronto, Executive
Committee (Toronto: April 28, 1975) pp. 27, exhibits 1-34.

78Ybid., p. 1-2 and exhibit 12.
T[bid., pp. 1-10.

78Ontario, Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto
(June 1977 — issued July 4, 1977) Vol. 2, p. 229.

Office of the Metropolitan Toronto Chairman, Draft Interim Metro
Housing Policy, Part I, Part I (Toronto: May 1974). The confusion
around “Part I, Part IP” is soon dissipated when it is discovered that Part I
simply contains the recommendations which “should be given immediate
attention by the Metropolitan Council.” The second part provides the
background argument and data upon which the recommendations are
based.

5°Executive Committee of the Metropolitan Council of Metropolitan
Toronto, “Proposed Amendment to the Municipality of Metropolitan
Toronto Act”, Report No. 42, Appendix A, p. 2158.

Housing Policies in Ontario: A Case Study 141

51Michael Dennis, not yet Commissioner of Housing for the City of
Toronto.

82A special committee of staff members of the Ontario Housing Corpora-
tion and Metropolitan Toronto Council was created in mid-1976 to consider
the principles involved in Metro’s assumption of responsibility, and the
administrative and financial arrangements which would be required to
implement a new housing authority. Late in 1977 the committee had not
yet reported but the question of delegating responsibility at a later time to
the boroughs appeared to be moribund.

88Office of the Metropolitan Toronto Chairman, op. cif., p. 10.

84The Metropolitan Toronto Non-Profit Housing Company was estab-
lished in 1975.

85Metropolitan Toronto, Report No. 42, p. 2157.

86Statement by Michael Goldrick submitted to the City of Toronto
Executive Committee on June 17, 1974, in Report No. 42 of the Metro-
politan Executive Committee, Appendix A, p. 2163.

8?The Interim Housing Policy for Metro was adopted by council on
November 5, 1974. The Office of the Chairman was requested to prepare
a second draft Metropolitan Interim Housing Policy. This was submitted
to the Social Services and Housing Committee and described as follows:

This is an Interim Housing Policy. When an official plan is adopted for
Metropolitan Toronto, that plan will contain a specific housing policy as
part of the official plan.

See memorandum from J. P. Kruger, executive director, Office of the
Metropolitan Chairman, to members of the Social Services and Housing
Committee, January 23, 1975, p. 3.

88Ontario, Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto
(Toronto: June 1977) pp. 235-238.

89CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics (Ottawa: 1977) Table 4, p. 4.

Legislature of Ontario, Debates, (Official Report No. 22, April 26,
1977) pp. 908-909, 927-928.

dem.
®2cf. infra., Chapter VIII, Table V.

*8Ontario, Fact Sheet (Ministry of Housing, mimeo., as at November 30,
1979) p. 1. Metro Toronto is counted as one municipality in these data.

“]bid., p. 2.

CHAPTER 7

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs

Many Canadians, members of a group which appears to grow larger
with the passing years, have no doubt that there is a simple solution to
the “housing problem”. The answer is clear, “Build more housing!”
This declamatory proposition must be implemented by government,
preferably by all three or four levels of government existing in Canada,
through a procedure of mustering the resources of the nation in the
interest of meeting a significant social and economic problem.

It should be obvious to all but the least thoughtful among us, that
the simple solution to the question of providing adequate and affordable
housing accommodation to all individuals and families is no solution
at all. The major problems of Western urbanized and industrialized
societies in the last quarter of the 20th century such as housing,
unemployment, inflation, the roles of young people, women and the
elderly, whether within or outside the labour force, are so complex
that the ready dictum, “Let government handle it!” is an irresponsible
denial of individual and social responsibility.

In the field of housing the situation is even more complicated than
in certain other fields, such as the provision of health and social
services, because absolutely contrary arguments are put forward with
equal vigor by self-interested groups. The previously stated argument
that governments can and will solve the problem of supplying housing
for all if it were made a priority for public policy, is matched by the
equally simplistic view that government is the major cause of the

143

144 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

problem and should get out of the field entirely leaving the matter to
private enterprise for solution.

The fact is there are several major constraints (and a host of minor
ones) to the implementation of housing policies stated either by public
or private entrepreneurs; and these forces apply almost equally to the
projected efforts of both public and private intervention in the housing
market. In the first instance, there are the traditional factors of pro-
duction - land, labour, materials and money — which significantly
constrain the supply side of the housing equation, with lesser and
sometimes contrary influence on the demand side.?

Secondly, there is the whole question of public attitudes toward both
housing policies and the programs which are developed to attain policy
objectives. Twenty years ago it would have been substantially correct
to argue that the members of the general public — whether individually
reached or influenced by the media — were primarily concerned with
the whole question of public intervention, including legislation, policy
formulation and program development. This is no longer the case;
rather, the pressures of individuals and small groups in both neigh-
bourhoods and larger areas have been directed increasingly during the
past decade toward the modification or outright rejection of housing
policies, programs and developments initiated by private entrepreneurs.

Similarly, it would have been reasonable to argue two decades ago
that elected and appointed officials at the municipal and provincial
levels of government were almost unanimously dedicated to urban
growth undertaken through the private market, with adherence to
nominal planning controls such as subdivision approval and zoning,
consistent with the approved “financial plan” and/or “official plan” of
the municipality. This is no longer the position; rather, a proportion
of elected and appointed officials in all levels of government are
dedicated to a philosophy of “no-growth” or what is sometimes called
“a conservor society”. This group of persons has been far more influ-
ential than its numbers would suggest, by virtue of the qualities of
literacy, devotion to principle and hard work evident in their efforts
to ensure the maintenance of “a steady state” in urban development.
The control of entrepreneurial activity by the enactment of new legis-
lation, by the strengthening of existing legislation, and by administrative
decisions based upon strict interpretation of the regulations, have
proved to be powerful constraints in the 1970s.

Each of these important factors at work in our society, whether
implicit within the factors of production or within the emotional and
behavioural components of people’s reactions to both policies and
programs deserve full treatment in a descriptive analysis of housing
policies. In the case of certain aspects, such as land, full-scale books
have recently been published. There are, however, constraints upon an

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 145

author with wider objectives than the intensity of specialized analysis.
These subjects will, therefore, receive attention in the full recognition
that far more might be said and indeed could be stated.

LAND AND HOUSING POLICIES

The subject of land, its availability, price, and servicing for urban
development, has been under examination for at least two centuries.
Adam Smith wrote,

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property,
the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed,
and demand a rent even for its produce.?

Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact, apparently obvious but
recently restated by Blumenfeld, that “raw” land is not “produced”,
but a “free gift of nature”.*

The availability and price of land for housing has occupied the
attention of politicians, policy analysts, urban planners, individual and
corporate building entrepreneurs, land speculators and almost everyone
who aspires to acquire affordable housing in a nation which will have
an estimated population of 30,655,500 in the year 2001, some 80 per
cent of whom will reside in twelve metropolitan areas.t The clear
implication is that the supply of land suitable for urban development
is severely limited. For many observers, this fact is sufficient to explain
the entire phenomenon of rapidly increasing lot prices in Canada’s
Census Metropolitan Areas. As stated before, the simple answer is
insufficient; nor is it acceptable to point to pressures of housing demand
upon the relatively fixed supply of land.

CMHC has maintained statistical data concerning the components of
housing costs since 1961 for NHA bungalows.® There was little change
to 1970 in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Edmonton but in Toronto
the proportion of land cost to total cost rose from 29 to 35 per cent,
and in Vancouver from 22 to 28 per cent. The most recent data
reveal that land costs for single-detached dwellings financed under the
NHA doubled between 1971 and 1976 and increased a further 18.8
per cent through 1978.7

The rise in land prices, evident to every would-be home purchaser,
became a major concern of Canadians in the 1970s, a focus for a good
deal of technical research, and an inspiration for many innovative
schemes Jaunched through governmental legislation designed to stabilize
at least, or reduce at best, the cost of land. Nevertheless, it became a
well-advertised fact by the late 1970s that in the metropolitan area of
Toronto, as well as in other growth areas such as Vancouver, Edmonton

146 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

and Calgary, the cost of the lot in the price of new homes was equal to
or greater than the cost of the house itself.

Land is in some ways an esoteric subject for consideration in a study
of housing policies. This is not only because of different approaches
taken ‘by. academic economists on the one hand and private developers
on the other, but because of the great confusion surrounding the
concept of public land banking. The controversies about the nature and
importance of land as a component in housing costs have ensured that
none of the major literary contributions to Canadian housing and urban
affairs in recent years have neglected the subject, at least in some of
its ramifications. In his major report on urban Canada, Harvey Lithwick
reviewed what he called “urban policy” in seven selected Canadian
cities. His major interest was the projection of future urban growth
and development and the policies which should be adopted to attain
these goals. Inevitably, his report directed attention to the impact of
population projections upon housing demand and thus upon the supply
of land for housing and other urban purposes.

As far as Metropolitan Toronto is concerned, Lithwick noted that
available raw land within the political boundaries of Metro was not
sufficient to provide new private family housing much beyond 1975 —
in any event “there is none available within the reach of four-fifths of
the population.”!° To quote a report of the Metropolitan Toronto
Planning Board dated September 17, 1969:

Proper sites for public family housing in Metropolitan Toronto are
already nearly exhausted, while the demand continues to increase, To
satisfy Metropolitan Toronto’s request for 35,000 new units between
1971-1981, the Ontario Housing Corporation which has already agreed
to the request will undoubtedly be forced to seek sites in the community
outside Metropolitan Toronto. Metropolitan Toronto, in fact, depends
on the urban land resources of the entire Toronto community to meet
its public housing needs.

In a research monograph in the Urban Canada series published a
year later, I. Lithwick and his colleagues devoted attention to the spatial
implications of Canada’s urban future. Their statistical estimate for
the three largest metropolitan areas - Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver
~ suggested a housing “demand’!? between 1971 and 2001 of more
than two and one-half million dwelling units. In terms of land this
means

a crude minimum estimate based on past high densities of 6,000
persons per square mile suggests an additional 400 square miles and a
maximum of 650 square miles added to Toronto’s land area alone.
Similar amounts withheld for Montreal, and Vancouver would require
between 125 and 250 square miles. It is impossible to estimate directly

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 147

the impact of these space requirements on land prices, although they
will make our past trends seem flat by comparison. The secondary
effects will be even more significant, since the competing demands for
urban space lie at the heart of the full range of urban problems.}%

The complexities of the politics, economics and administration of
land have rarely been analysed more intensively than in two Canadian
studies published in recent years. The Advisory Task Force on Housing
Policy, appointed by the Government of Ontario in November 1972,
commissioned a series of relevant investigations and published a work-
ing paper on land which has had a significant impact on provincial
policies in the broad fields of housing and urban development."*

A second study, prepared by Peter Spurr for Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation, remains the most detailed available statistical
analysis of “land and urban development” on a national scale.1> This
study had a very different impact than the Report of the Ontario
Advisory Task Force because it was based upon a philosophy clearly
explicated by the author!® and because it was not published by CMHC.
The publisher has argued that “months of public pressure” and a
personal intervention by the Minister of State for Urban Affairs led to
its release for private publication.!7 Moreover, the Spurr Report, as it
came to be known, led many reviewers, analysts, and politicians to
espouse an argument concerning “the land problem” which took the
form of a theory of conspiracy.

In Ontario where the cost of building lots has escalated significantly
since 1961, the task force posed the issue in a form which can be
clearly understood.

Without land, there can be no housing. New housing, housing re-
development, community and commercial facilities supporting housing
development all use land. Most of the housing development and
redevelopment occur now in urban areas, so that the main issue
concerns urban or urbanizing land. Equally, however, the satisfactory
provision of land for urban purposes implies the suitable conservation
of land for non-urban purposes.18

The research undertaken for this study showed that land costs had
consistently increased at a higher rate since 1961 in all major urban
areas of the province. In twelve cities which accounted for over 60 per
cent of the population of Ontario, increases in land costs for houses
ranged from 61 to 341 per cent during the decade ending 1971, while
the cost of labour doubled and the prices of materials in housing
construction rose just 45 per cent.1® This discussion illustrates one of
the analytical approaches which, in its various dimensions, cause con-
fusion in the public mind. J refer to. the several ways in which increased
land prices may be viewed.

148 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

There are at least three sets of data which may be examined. First
of all, there is the price of a serviced building lot in dollar terms.”°
Figures published by the task force as well as by Spurr clearly show a
doubling or even tripling of the dollar price of a house lot in many
Canadian cities from 1965 through 1973,21 on top of a steady but
much slower increase in such prices during the early 1960s. As far as
the home buyer is concerned, it is the total price of the house including
the lot which concerns him. It became widely understood that, ceteris
paribus, an adequate house could be constructed in the mid-1970s for
a reasonable price in most metropolitan areas, but the total purchase
price was greatly influenced by the incredible rise in the price of the
land.??

The second approach to the impact of land cost is derived by
calculating the percentage of the total cost of a new house accounted
for by land cost. As late as 1971 the latter represented between 20 to
40 per cent of the cost of a new house, but by 1973, in the metropolitan
area of Toronto it accounted for over 50 per cent of the cost.?* The
socio-economic significance of this trend was expressed forcefully in
the working paper.

If for social reasons government action is required to deal with the
effects of high land costs, then it is held that subsidies are in order for
those who need them. As long as land costs constituted a lesser
proportion of land development costs, this matter was not a public
issue. When half the cost of a new house goes for the land, it becomes
a matter of public debate.24

Spurr confirmed in his analysis the fact that there was substantial
stability in the proportion of land costs to total housing cost throughout
Canada during the years 1965-69. In the early 1970s, and particularly
after 1973, there was a marked increase in this percentage. He
emphasized that “. . . it is apparent that lot prices have escalated more
rapidly than have house or total housing prices,’””°>

The third method of examining the impact of land price involves a
breakdown of the components of monthly ownership costs. At any
point in time it is possible to describe the so-called typical new house
in a particular Canadian metropolitan area and to analyse the propor-
tion of monthly occupancy costs attributable to land, mortgage money,
labour, materials, and other costs such as property taxes, fuel prices,
and insurance rates. For the Ontario Advisory Task Force, Barnard
Associates analysed the change in these components due to cost in-
creases for the period 1967 — 1971, in twelve major Ontario cities.

In seven of these cities the percentage change due to rising land costs
was the most important factor in the analysis. For example, in Toronto
41 per cent of the increase in monthly ownership costs was attributable

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 149

to rising land prices; for Hamilton the figure was 37 per cent, and for
Kitchener, it was 31 per cent. In Ottawa, London, Thunder Bay and
Sault Ste. Marie the cost of mortgage money due to rising interest rates
was the most significant component over the decade. In none of the
twelve cities was the cost of materials most important, but in the case
of Ottawa the “other” category, literally a combination of many sub-
factors, was as important as the cost of mortgage money.”°

Any member of the general public can be forgiven if these varied
analyses tend to cause confusion. All that we know is that the prices
of new or old houses in most urban areas have reached levels which
seem astronomical in comparison with the past, even after allowing for
increases in the general level of prices and wage rates. Nevertheless,
we seek to understand the cause of these phenomena and to discover,
if we can, the sequential nature of the economic and social events.
Spurr points out that these empirical analyses raise a central question in
land policy, that is, “What causes what, land price or house price?”

Most people wrongly consider that lot prices are independent of house
prices and thus high land prices are determinants of high house prices.
Certainly, the cost of land and other production costs constitute the
minimum price a builder would charge for a house. Moreover, as both
house and lot prices are increasing quickly and the proportion of total
housing price which pays for the lot is also climbing, people often
conclude that the lot prices are pushing up the price of housing. Once
this conceptual separation of the two prices are made, it becomes
logical to conclude that lot producers (land developers) and the lot
production process (involving producers and many government bodies)
can control lot prices by direct manipulation and supply manipulation,
respectively. Thus this conceptual distinction is at the heart of notions
that Jot prices can be controlled or lowered by interventions in the
production process.”27

Clearly, it is government which most people call upon to intervene.
The Ontario Advisory Task Force made a detailed analysis of the
provincial role in land supply and pointed out that the province of
Ontario (and, by implication, all Canadian provinces) has a number
of highly significant responsibilities bearing on the use of the land.
These responsibilities range all the way from policies relating to
environmental considerations and the power to expropriate land for
public purposes, to provincial control over municipal borrowing,
financial assistance for educational and community services and ultimate
local government functions.?8

The analysis concluded that provincial governments have the
authority and sufficient powers to shape and time land development,
but as far as Ontario is concerned, the provincial role in land supply
had been ambivalent as the province had played only a minimal role

150 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

in supply but a strong role in land use (which inevitably affects land
supply). The provincial government was identified as an unwitting
abettor of a land crisis by permitting land supply to be determined by
two land demand forces — public land use considerations and a private
land development market — without any conscious policy concerning
land supply as such.?°

The major impact of the task force in this area of concern was the
initiation of an Ontario Housing Action Program by the new Ministry
of Housing within the very month of its formation, October 1973.
Professor Eli Comay, who chaired the inquiry, was appointed to stimu-
late housing production in ten high-growth areas in Ontario. Private
developers and builders would receive mortgages for up to 95 per cent
of the house price at a below-market rate of interest provided that the
houses were priced for families of moderate and low income.*®

The province agreed to provide interest-free loans to regional muni-
cipalities for major services for land development and to local munici-
palities for storm sewerage. Furthermore, the ministry would provide
a direct unconditional grant to the local municipality (to offset possible
increased municipal taxes) for every building created under the federal-
provincial OHAP agreement. Local councils were further encouraged
to determine the potential for new house-building through policy studies
which would be financed with grants up to $100,000. Municipal
councils were encouraged to process development proposals quickly
and to determine local conditions of approval. These councils were to
sign agreements with the ministry to ensure that services and facilities
for the OHAP housing would be provided. For their part, building
developers were required to provide 10 per cent of their units within
the HOME income range and at least an additional 30 per cent for
families with incomes up to $20,000.*4

LAND BANKING

The Ontario Advisory Task Force defined Jand banking as “. . . the
public assembly of large and small parcels of land, over short- or long-
term use, for residential or other development purposes.”®? The major
contribution of the Spurr Report, defined by the author himself as
“the primary subject matter of the entire report”, is a detailed exam-
ination of public land assembly programs, their goals, activities, and
the many issues which surround them.?* Nevertheless, this report
attracted most public attention for its statistical revelations of private
developers’ land holdings within major metropolitan regions throughout
Canada. From the private organization’s point of view, land banking

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 151

cannot simply be considered as “public assembly” because, surely, the
private entrepreneur must plan ahead through forward purchase of the
basic commodity upon which both his product and his ultimate profit
rest.

Spurr’s analysis of private land holdings encompassed six regional
studies (Ottawa-Hull, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Winnipeg, Ed-
monton and Vancouver).*+ This research revealed that thousands of
acres were located in corporate land holdings with substantial concen-
trations in the hands of a few development organizations in most
regions. In the Toronto region, for example, a little less than 82 per
cent of the total acreage was held by seven organizations; within this.
total four firms held 58.65 per cent of the total acreage.* Information
of this sort, together with analyses of land development within the
private sector, led a number of journalists to enunciate “a conspiracy
theory”, as suggested earlier in this chapter.

The argument ran as follows: the concentration of land holdings by
a relatively few large development organizations in Canadian metro-
politan areas was primarily in restraint of trade and the strengthening
of oligopolistic firms in the housing market. Such vast land holdings
would be released in small increments designed to maintain shortness
of supply and thus to stabilize or increase high land lot prices. Needless
to suggest, this was by no means the view of the development organiza-
tions who argued that they were doing no more than planning ahead
one or two decades, that in any event much of their land would not be
serviced for years to come, and that in fact they were ensuring a
gradual rather than a catastrophic increase in the ultimate price of
urban housing in the 1980s and 1990s.

The report on land and urban development did argue that developer
land banks were increasing in size, value and importance. Moreover,
there was no question that as the land moved “on stream” land sales
yielded very high profits and provided a substantial proportion of the
total revenue of most firms. A selected analysis of nine development
organizations, with headquarters in seven large urban centres, revealed
holdings of more than 33,000 acres, costing over $200 million but
having a market value of at least two to three times its cost.%¢

Public land assembly is not inconsistent in purpose with private land
banks. In both cases land is acquired in advance of its intended
development, “. . . either in the sense that it is held for years before
development begins, or because development follows acquisition im-
mediately but the project is sufficiently large that it takes many years
of regular construction to deplete (sic) the project.”®7 Peter Spurr
identified four distinct objectives a government body might pursue by
undertaking a Jand assembly project and then analysed each of these
objectives.38

152 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

(1) To reduce land costs for the ultimate consumer (i.e.: house prices).

This goal can be achieved when government buys suitable residential
land, holds it until its cost is significantly lower than current prices,
and then develops the site and sells it or leases it at below market
prices. A case in point is the huge Malvern development in north-east
Metro Toronto where 1,700 acres of raw land were acquired in the
early 1950s at an average price of $900 per acre. Municipal services
did not reach the Malvern area (approximately ten miles north of Lake
Ontario in Scarborough) until the early 1970s. By this time, the
Ontario HOME Program was in effect and building lots were leased
to home buyers for five years at the “book value” then pertaining. This
amount -- as Malvern came into being — was at least 50 per cent below
the current market value of comparable lots elsewhere in Metro
Toronto.

As Spurr points out, buyers obtain one of two alternative kinds of
benefits. Either they can obtain housing they could not otherwise afford
or they can capitalize the amount of the price reduction by reselling
the lot at market prices directly or by using the realized saving for
other consumption. Since the federal-provincial partnership had banked
the land in the first instance, no public official was ready to countenance
attainment of the second kind of benefit. Thus, maximum prices were
placed upon the homes to be constructed on the building lots sub-
divided in Malvern.*® The land was leased for five years during which
time the house could not be sold and consideration was given to the
question of control over resales.*°

In Spurr’s view, the first kind of benefit is seen as a proper subsidy
which goes only to families who could not buy a home without it. In
practice, however, the technique raises difficult social questions. There
are many families who can barely afford home ownership even with
the subsidy, and may find it very difficult to maintain payments for
increased taxes, rising costs of energy, and the cost of normal main-
tenance. These and other purchasers were likely to be in the front rank
of sellers as soon as the five-year leasing period was completed. Since
the Ministry of Housing had not evolved a method of controlling
resales this was the experience in Malvern when many houses came on
the market in late 1975 and early 1976 as the first leasing period
expired." Sellers made very substantial tax-free capital gains, surely a
subversion of the original socio-economic purpose. The fact that these
gains have been produced by public action is not lost on the general
public.

(2) To control urban spatial expansion in support of planning goals,
by leading or.blocking the shape of a city’s growth with the public land.

Some urban planners and elected representatives have viewed public
land banking as a method of controlling the expansion of a city. It is

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 153

reasoned that ownership of strategic acreage would impede spatial
expansion in an unplanned direction or form and in particular, would
block premature subdivision of raw land. Spurr considers that this
form of public ownership of large acreages may be less effective and
is certaintly more expensive than alternative techniques such as zoning.
The exception to this conclusion would be the case where public land
assembly is designed to create large greenbelts or regional parks
intended to separate urban centres from rural land or recreational
areas.

(3) To provide land for various social needs not met by private enter-
prise. One such need is low-cost land for subsidized housing projects
for the elderly, public housing, and assisted ownership programs.

Governmental assembly of land for future development as public
housing has been undertaken since the beginning of the 1950s by the
federal government in co-operation with several provinces, and more
recently by a number of provinces acting to implement their own
housing policies, although supported with federal loans.*? There are
both short- and long-term instances of public activity in this regard.
In many cases in Ontario, for example, municipalities have made land,
which they own, available to the Ontario Housing Corporation to assist
in the near-term development of social housing for senior citizens or
families. In 1973, the corporation, on behalf of the government of
Ontario, held almost 9,000 acres** and was in the process of additional
acquisition, including the development of an entirely new satellite
community known as North Pickering (25,000 acres).

The purchase of land well in advance of development can reduce
substantially the total cost of a public housing project and thus should
reduce the operational subsidies required for the half-century following
occupation of the housing units. These comments apply to the case of
rental housing but in situations like a vast development such as Malvern,
and other large land holdings which are not yet under development,
public land banking has raised difficult questions of public policy.

Whether or not government engages in land assembly, it can antici-
pate very strong criticisms. Those groups in the voluntary and public
sectors dedicated to increase housing believe that government must
plan ahead, must obtain substantial land banks, and must make this
land available at or near cost in the development of socially-assisted
housing both for rent and for sale. On the other hand, representative
groups within the house-building industry believe that the vast public
expenditures required in land assembly would be much better devoted
to the servicing of land so that larger numbers of serviced lots would
be available for building. In fact, at least in Ontario, the provincial
government has undertaken both approaches without seriously affecting
the cost of land in the form of lot prices. Both Spurr and the Ontario

154 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Advisory Task Force agree that governmental activity has been insuffi-
cient to affect the market although it is suggested that “properly planned
public land acquisition can have some effect in certain circumstances in
moderating pressures on land and house prices.”*+

In 1976, as the housing market revealed substantial numbers of
unsold houses in Ontario, the ministry determined to reverse the efforts
of the previous quarter-century by announcing a new policy with respect
to Jand which effectively ended some programs and presumably con-
strained certain social objectives - HOME was ended. Moreover, the
ministry announced that it would gradually dispose of the major govern-
mental land assemblies over a period of years. Building lots would be
sold “at the lower end of the market range” in the particular com-
munities in which such lots were located. These decisions might appear
to be an acceptance of developers’ viewpoints; they were not.? It
seems apparent that the provincial government decided that its activities
in land banking were, on balance, insufficiently productive. The inability
to control windfall profits in the first assembly process and the inability
to control resales of HOME and other development programs were
important considerations in these decisions.
(4) To generate net revenue (profit) for governments.

The fourth objective identified by Peter Spurr was described as “the
generation of revenue” through public land assembly projects. In
reference to the banking and development of residential land, he wrote,

As much as this is a profitable activity in the private sector, it is more
profitable in the public sector as governments can achieve lower fiscal
costs than their private counterparts.*¢

The decisions taken in Ontario in the late 1970s are a case in point.
It is estimated that the provincial government will realize profits of
$3 to $5 million per annum. As pleasant as this prospect appears,
public land assemblies often involved expropriation, and previous
owners have been strongly critical of the long delays in development
during which the process of inflation added substantially to the “on
paper” profits of government or future developers. Accordingly, the
Ontario Ministry of Housing stipulated that these profits would be
devoted to other housing programs in Ontario. As Spurr pointed out,
in theoretical terms “the gain could be used to make the land program
self-sustaining and finance development of infrastructure and other
services, thereby off-setting property taxes and local improvement
charges.”’47

The optimism concerning public land banking so evident in the
literature and in the public debate of the past quarter-century has
moderated significantly. The federal government had reserved $500

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 155

million for the five years following amendments to the NHA in 1973.
Recent assessments, however, are generally pessimistic or negative.

Despite a commitment by the federal government in 1973 to take
action in the area of land, as well as similar commitments on the part
of several provincial governments, the availability of lots or building
sites from public land assemblies has not increased. In many market
areas it has decreased. While the assembly, servicing and disposal or
development of land for housing takes a long time, it is obvious that
much more needs to be done through public land policies to influence
or regulate the price of urban land as well as the form of urban Jand.48

No one can, of course, estimate accurately what would have happened
to Jand prices in Canada in the absence of federal-provincial inter-
vention in the 1960s and 1970s.

LABOUR, MATERIALS AND MONEY

In the 1950s the supply of construction labour was a cause for
concern in some areas of Canada and a good deal of attention was
devoted to restrictive practices of trade unions in controlling the
number of apprentices in a variety of skilled building trades. This
concern appeared to evaporate with the arrival in Canada of many
thousands of newcomers, particularly from southern Europe, who were
employed in construction labour.

By the mid-1960s attention had shifted from the supply of labour
to union agreements, wage rates and the prices of certain building
materials such as Jumber, cement, and copper piping, which from time
to time showed dramatic rises in unit prices. Once again there can be
considerable confusion by virtue of the simultaneous examination of a
variety of indexes, a variety of prices, a variety of wage rates for
skilled tradesmen in several specialties, and a lack of knowledge con-
cerning the proportion of increased house prices attributable to the
cost of labour, materials and mortgage money.

The cost of residential construction during the years 1961-71 on a
1961 base showed increases of almost exactly 50 per cent.‘ When the
base period was changed to 1971 the most recent indexes of construc-
tion costs revealed the following percentage increases by 1978 for
Canada as a whole®*:

prices of residential building materials + 84.0
wage rates of construction workers + 106.2
composite index of residential building

materials and wage rates + 92.0

construction cost per square metre
(NHA single-detached dwellings) + 98.9

156 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Basic union wage rate indexes based on a 1971 index for selected
trades revealed, by 1978, percentage increases of 116.7 for equipment
operators, 117.8 for labourers, 104.4 for carpenters, 102.7 for cement
finishers, 94.4 for bricklayers, 99.1 for plumbers, and 99.5 for
electricians.*+

Without the proportionate contribution to total price and/or cost
increase through time from each of these components, it is difficult to
judge the significance of labour costs as compared to the cost of
materials or mortgage money as a constraint on the housing process.
The figures do clearly illustrate, however, that the upward trend in all
aspects of residential construction has accelerated in the 1970s.

The Barnard study for the Ontario Advisory Task Force did analyse
all the reasons for change in monthly ownership costs for the years
1961-71.°2 For those years, changes in the cost of mortgage money
ranged from 22 per cent of the increase in monthly occupancy cost in
Windsor to as much as 29 per cent in Ottawa. The figure for Toronto
was 25 per cent and the average for twelve large urban centres was
25.25 per cent.

The variation in changing costs of labour and materials was much
greater. As far as labour cost was concerned, the change in monthly
ownership cost due to rising wage rates was as little as 11 per cent in
Ottawa and Hamilton and as high as 38 per cent in Windsor; the
figure for Toronto was 15 per cent. Changes in the cost of building
materials showed a wide variation ranging from 8 per cent in Ottawa,
to 22 per cent in Thunder Bay and 25 per cent in Sault Ste. Marie.
There does not appear to be cause for optimism that prices and wages
will level off in the 1980s.

The cost of mortgage money, both in terms of the supply of available
funds and the fluctuation in interest rates, has been the prime subject
of several reports and numerous government studies.** There can be
no question of the significance of the cost of home financing to the
purchaser. In the 1960s interest rates rose from 7 to 10 per cent,
“adding at least 20 per cent to monthly home ownership costs.”>+

In the first half of the 1970s first mortgage rates in Canada reached
12 per cent and effectively removed many moderate income families
from the demand side of the housing market. In 1976-77 the Bank of
Canada reduced its lending rate on several occasions so that by late
1977 first mortgages were commanding 10 per cent. By the spring of
1980 several increases resulted in rates in excess of 16 per cent. When
all of the components of housing costs are taken into consideration the
ultimate sale prices are far beyond the debt service capacity of perhaps
two-thirds of Canadian heads of households. The familiar cry that
Canadian governments must act to produce “affordable housing” was,
therefore, particularly strident in the second half of the 1970s.

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 157
ADDITIONAL CONSTRAINTS

The number and variety of constraining factors in the housing market
is almost infinite. Some of these aspects are within the control of
government in the short run; others will involve longer term considera-
tion and may not be resolved until the Canadian constitution is
rewritten.

The controls exercised by provincial and local governments over the
housing production process are a significant consideration. Provincial
planning law has emerged during the past two decades as a specialized
field within the discipline. Planning controls implicit within the devel-
opment of “official plans”, zoning, subdivision control, and, in parti-
cular, local by-laws governing the “maintenance and occupancy” of
housing accommodation can be utilized either to stimulate both private
and public activity in housing or, to effectively forestall such develop-
ment. Building developers have complained incessantly since the
initiation of the apartment boom in the early 1960s that governmental
controls add years of time and thousands of dollars to the production
of every dwelling unit.

The major response of municipal governments to these allegations is
framed in terms of the financial disabilities of local government without
home rule in a federal governmental system. Fundamentally, reliance
by Canadian municipalities upon property tax is a significant considera-
tion, they insist, in the process of housing production. The Minister of
State for Urban Affairs pointed to the significance of the taxation
dilemma facing local government in an important address in May 1977.

I also think that the property tax can be a serious constraint on
municipal governments . . . It is these variations in property tax
burdens, caused by differences in the tax capacities of municipalities
and in the ability of Canadians to pay property taxes . . . which I
think serve(s) to reduce the ability of certain municipal governments
to raise the revenues necessary to provide adequate levels of public
services to their electorates.

If a municipality levies a residential property tax at above average
rates, the cost of shelter services will be higher in that community
relative to the price in other communities. If a community levies a
higher than average non-residential property tax, investments in factory
buildings and other assets subjects to the property tax will be less
profitable than elsewhere . . . What is of major concern to me is that
Canadians living in communities with low taxable capacities find that
their access to community facilities and the quality of their community
and neighbourhood can only be met with tax burdens significantly
greater than those faced by other Canadians.

The fact is that the pressure on elected representatives is designed to
stabilize such tax burdens rather than to increase them, with the clear

158 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

result that many local areas have a much lower quality of community
and neighbourhood than others.

The most subtle of all constraints on housing supply in Canada is
difficult to pinpoint with accuracy. I refer to the whole question of
attitudes on the part of Canadians toward the supply of housing in
several respects. Attitudinal behaviour toward housing supply ranges
all the way from resistance to “public housing”, such as rental housing
for low income families or housing for purchase by moderate income
families, to private activity which appears to attract urban growth.
These attitudinal sets which merit further explanation are the subject of
the following chapter.

NOTES

\Shortages among the factors of production, such as mortgage funds,
resulting in higher prices, have occasionally stimulated demand rather than
depressed it. This has occurred because of the fear that house prices and
rents will rise even more, a fear exploited openly by the real estate industry.

2Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776, edited by Edwin Cannan,
(New York: Random House, The Modern Library Edition, 1937) p. 49.
In an edition in 1814, Buchanan agreed with Smith’s observation but noted
that “other men love also to reap where they never sowed, but the landlords
alone, it would appear, succeed in so desirable an object.” (Vol. 1, p. 80).

®Hans Blumenfeld, “Land Control and Land Prices”, Community Plan-
ning Review, (Ottawa: Community Planning Association of Canada, Feb-
tuary 1977) Vol: 27, No. 2, p. 1.

4Statistics Canada, Population Projections for Canada and the Provinces,
1972-2001 (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1974) Table 6.2, Projection B
(medium fertility), p. 61; and A. Goracz, I. Lithwick and L. O. Stone,
The Urban Future, Research Monograph 5 (Ottawa: Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation, 1971) Table II, Method N4, p. 30. The latter pro-
jections of total population in CMA’s include about half of the metropolitan
areas recognized in the census.

5For Canada as a whole, bungalows accounted for 75 per cent of all
NHA single-detached dwellings over the decade 1961-70. In Toronto,
however, the proportion was about 35 per cent for the same period. Dennis
and Fish, op. cit., pp. 78-79. These data revealed that the ratio of land
costs as a percentage of total costs for Canada as a whole, increased by
only one percentage point (from 17 to 18 per cent) during the years
1961-70. Lithwick, however, lists the increase in land costs 1964-68 at
19.3 per cent. See N. H. Lithwick, Urban Canada (Ottawa: CMHC,
December 1970) p. 21.

6Dennis and Fish, ibid., p. 79.

7Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statistics,
1978, Table 112, p. 92. Using 1971 as a base equalling 100, the index for

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 159

1961 was just 56.7; for 1976 it had reached 201.0 and by 1978, 239.0.
Similar data were not published for the metropolitan areas.

8L. B. Smith, “Housing in Canada,” Urban Canada, Research Monograph
2 (Ottawa: Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, January 1971)
pp. 31-37.

°N. H. Lithwick, “Problems and Prospects,” Urban Canada (Ottawa:
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, December 1970) pp. 186-191.

1W]bid., p. 187.

1\Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, September 17, 1969. At the
time, Lithwick wrote, the OHC received an annual request from Metro’s
Social Services and Housing Committee for a specific number of public
housing dwellings for families. Metro itself was responsible for public
housing units for senior citizens. OHC responded to these annual requests,
sometimes projected over a five- or ten-year period, through a variety of
techniques which, by the mid-1970s resulted in a portfolio of more than
30,000 dwelling units under direct management.

12The authors did not mean “effective” demand but simply the require-
ments based upon statistical projections of increasing numbers of families
and non-family households.

148A. Goracz, I. Lithwick, and L. O. Stone, The Urban Future, Research
Monograph, No, 5 (Ottawa: Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation,
January 1971) p. 118.

M4Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Land for Housing,
Working Paper C (Toronto: Queen’s Printer, June 1973) pp. 67.

45Peter Spurr, Land and Urban Development: A Preliminary Study
(Toronto: James Lorimer and Co., 1976) pp. 437.

16Spurr expressed his personal belief that the relationship between
Canadians and urban land is essentially exploitative. Land is space, space
has become “owned” and a method for obtaining significant financial gains.
He considers urban development to resemble an “excessive machine”,
consuming enormous and increasing volumes of energy and other resources
which he describes as a horrendous, deliberate, short-term exploitation of
this planet. op. cit., pp. 8-11.

17See back cover of 1976 paper edition.

18Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Land for Housing,
p.l.

\9bid., Appendix, Table 1, p. 62. These data were developed by Peter
Barnard Associates in a commissioned report entitled, Developments in the
Cost, Supply and Need for Housing in Ontario, April 1973.

20"Serviced” lot, as defined by the task force, is land with water supply,
sewer lines leading to treatment plants, and roads suitable for cars, trucks
and buses. In addition, urban land for housing must include school sites and
other community facilities.

1Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, op. cit., p. 2, and
Table 3, p. 64. See also Spurr, op. cit., Table 2.0, p. 15.

160 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

?2The task force reported that in the Metropolitan Toronto area the
average price of a serviced lot in March 1973 at $22,000 represented an
increase of about 100 per cent over the previous year. Within three years
this price exceeded $30,000.

28Peter Barnard Associates, op. cit., pp. 12-13.

24Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, op. cit., p. 31.
25Spurr, op. cit., p. 21, and Table 2.2, p. 20.

26Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, op. cit., Table 2, p. 63.
27Spurr, op. cit., p. 21-22.

*8Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
291 bid., p. 30.

3°The income ranges were those pertaining to the HOME Plan, with
differential income limits for the various areas.

31Ontario Ministry of Housing, “Housing Programmes in Ontario”,
Housing Ontario Vol. 20, No. 1, (January ~ February 1976) p. 11.

82Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Land for Housing,
p. 39.

88S$purr, op. cit., p. Xvi.

34Spurr, op cit., pp. 81-182, passim.

8>Ibid., Table 3.5, p. 112.

36Spurr, op. cit., pp. 239-241.

87Spurr, op. cit., p. 246.

88[bid., pp. 246-257.

39This was true, of course, in all HOME Programs.

40In extenuating circumstances, such as the transfer of the householder
to a new job in another community, the individual owner was required to
appeal directly to the Board of Ontario Housing Corporation for permission
to sell. There have been very few such appeals and some were denied
because it appeared that the owner’s objective was the realization of a
capital gain. In the few cases where permission was granted, stringent
financial controls were exercised; the land lease was transformed to the new
owner at the original terms.

“Perhaps the only way to exercise such control would be a stipulation
that houses must be resold to a government organization at a fair market
value, excluding an increase in land cost.

“The most recent annual reports of several provincial housing corpora-
tions indicate substantial interest and activity in public land banking. The
Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation, for example, had land banked
4,717 acres including 3,554 in the Winnipeg area by the end of 1975.
Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation, Annual Report, 1974-75
(Winnipeg: Queen’s Printer, February 1976) p. 6.

Constraints Upon Policies and Programs 161

Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Report (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer, August 1973) p. 39. In the spring of 1977 the amount of
land controlled by the Ministry of Housing and the Ontario Housing
Corporation was listed at 23,000 acres. (Housing Ontario, Vol. 21, No. 3,
March/ April 1977) p. 15.

#Ontario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Report (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer, August 1973) p. 49.

45In a series of speeches in March 1977, the Minister of Housing, John
Rhodes, stated that his ministry would sell land sufficient for 3,000 to 4,000
“land units” per year depending upon demand. Land units are defined as
single lots, semi-detached lots, or blocks of land on which a specific number
of residential units will be built. The minister emphasized that serviced land
would be marketed to the building industry for the construction of no-frill,
modest homes which must qualify under AHOP assistance. Housing Ontario,
op. cit., p. 16.

46Spurr, op. cit., p. 253.
47§purr, op. cit., p. 255.

48Canadian Council on Social Development, A Review of Canadian Social
Housing Policy (Ottawa: CCSD, January 1977) p. 163-164.

49Statistics Canada, National Income and Expenditure Accounts (Ottawa:
Statistics Canada, Cat. 13-001, 1971).

59Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing Statis-
tics 1978, Table 110, p. 91.

SUbid., Table Il, p. 91.

52Peter Barnard Associates, op. cit., Land for Housing (Ontario Advisory
Task Force on Housing Policy, June 1973) Vol. 2, Table 2, p. 63. Their
findings on land cost have previously been reported in this chapter.

531. B. Smith, “The Canadian Housing and Mortgage Markets”, Bank of
Canada Staff Research Studies, 1970, pp. 110.

'4Qntario Advisory Task Force on Housing Policy, Report (Toronto:
Queen’s Printer, August 1973) p. 35.

55Canada, Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, Remarks by the Honour-
able Andre Ouellet to the Annual Meeting, Canadian Federation of
Municipalities (Toronto, May 18, 1977) pp. 5-6.

CHAPTER 8

Housing for Low-Income Families:
The Importance of Attitudes

Public housing projects are seen as particularly burdensome since they
generally require municipal cost-sharing and may, in addition, bring
social and other problems into a community. New housing of all types
generates short-term demands and long-term commitments for muni-
cipal expenditures on physical services, transportation facilities, schools,
and the full range of human services. Although the federal and pro-
vincial levels of government sometimes subsidize the provision of these
services, and developers in many instances provide physical services,
it is easy to understand how municipalities may decide to discourage
further residential growth in times of restraint. Such a policy may be
adopted even though its social implications are recognized to be great.1

For more than a century, in Western industrial nations, there has
been particular concern about the housing conditions of persons and
families who were attracted to the new employment opportunities
consequent upon the industrial revolution. In Great Britain and Western
Europe the thrust toward improved housing conditions was led by
public health doctors and other professionals in the health care field
and by so-called social reformers and social workers. These pioneers in
housing reform had one substantial argument no longer applicable in
advanced western countries — the danger of widespread infectious
disease. In Great Britain and Western Europe it was possible to point
to past outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, smallpox and even the bubonic
plague, and to emphasize that the entire community was potentially

163

164 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

threatened by recurrent epidemics associated with inadequate housing
conditions and inadequate sanitation within rapidly expanding urban
areas.

Fear is a pre-eminent additional force and certainly not without
powerful effect in influencing the passage of legislation intended to
overcome the worst evils of “slum living”. The statistical associations
between poor health and poor housing, between the incidence of crime
and poor housing, between mental illness and poor housing, between
family breakdown and poor housing, were not difficult to demonstrate.”
Nevertheless, progress in the enactment of laws restraining perpetuation
of the most inadequate housing conditions could not be expected to
overcome the basic problem, namely poverty.

In the decade following World War One, North America emerged
as an “island of prosperity” in the midst of serious economic difficulties
throughout Western Europe and the rest of the world. When the
Depression struck the United States and Canada with full force in
1931, these nations were ill-equipped to deal not only with unemploy-
ment and consequent poverty, but with the enormous impact of these
manifestations upon housing conditions. A good many families lost
their homes when they could not meet the mortgage payments and/or
local tax levies. A great many former homeowners thus became tenants
and characteristically, tenants have very little choice in periods of
either great depression or great prosperity.

In those years, however, the view emerged in Canada that unemploy-
ment was not the responsibility of the individual worker in a world-
wide economic depression, and thus the miserable housing conditions
of hundreds of thousands of households were a consequence of their
lack of employment and income, and not due to their lack of thrift
or good management. This acceptance of a more reasonable attitude
toward poor people was by no means universal but it did penetrate the
legislative chambers of the federal government and to some degree
those of the provincial governments. Moreover, at the local level there
were active reform movements with the objective of improving the
housing conditions in such cities as Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto,
Montreal and Halifax. Groups of concerned persons and associations
made some headway during the 1930s but were forced to wait until
the post-Second World War years to achieve objectives which were
often enunciated in the 1920s and particularly in the early-1930s.

The years 1945-49 were critical in Canadian housing history. A
movement had developed toward housing reform, a concept which
encompassed physical and social planning, the improvement of trans-
portation facilities and a variety of community improvements. Implicit
within all these objectives was the clear drive toward slum clearance,
visualized as a simple program whereby the worst housing would be

Housing for Low-Income Families 165

eliminated and those who lived within it would be rehoused in physi-
cally and socially adequate housing accommodation. Those who strove
for such accomplishments were unaware of the strong resistance they
would encounter and the attitudes of a substantial proportion of the
general public toward their activities. They were soon disabused of
their innocence.

The early struggles towards urban redevelopment, particularly in
Vancouver and Toronto, were strongly opposed by organizations of
home builders, boards of trade, chambers of commerce, associations
of ratepayers and/or home-owners, and a variety of groups which
alleged that public intervention in these matters was a form of “com-
munism” at worst, “creeping socialism” at best. Other opponents to
public housing who were members of social, charitable and religious
organizations viewed the provision of public housing as “immoral”, In
their view, there was something different about the provision of housing
for persons from the provision of food, clothing and medical care for
those who could not afford to meet their own needs.

More than forty years later these sets of attitudes have by no means
disappeared. In the meantime, the society has become “affluent”, in
the sense that a far greater proportion of Canadians have substantially
greater incomes and greater purchasing power than would have been
conceived possible in 1945. Most Canadians, even those in poverty,
abound with physical possessions — stoves, refrigerators, television sets,
automobiles, electrical appliances of one sort or another — which were
generally restricted before World War II to the few fortunate wealthy.
The onset of affluence has not, however, made the lot of the poor
more pleasant or more socially accepted. Rather, in a so-called affluent
society, those individuals and families who are unable to provide
adequate housing accommodation with their own resources are less
accepted than in the years when the great majority of Canadians were
not relatively well-off.

Programs of public intervention in housing just before and following
World War Two rested upon the basic concept that it was desirable
for the state to ensure adequate housing accommodation for certain
individuals and families, not merely to protect the great majority of
citizens from the threat of crime and disease but because the costs of
slum dwelling had to be inevitably met by expenditures for social
services, health services, correctional services, and the protection of
persons and property. It seemed logical for government to create
housing at rentals or prices which could be “afforded” by the poorest
families, with the full knowledge that the difference between the costs
of construction and the capacity to pay of those needing accommodation
— the “subsidy” — would have to be met by the taxpayers of all levels
of government. Those who required such subsidization were quickly

166 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

seen by the general public as “those people” who required assistance
by comparison with other people who managed with their own
resources,

The stigma attributed to the residents of public housing was prevalent
from the very beginning of efforts towards slum clearance in Canada
and the United States. Those persons who had struggled to meet their
own problems with their own resources resented those who required
and received assistance. The latter group were generally perceived as
poor, shiftless, and immoral. Attitudes towards those who require
assistance have not changed much in more than four decades. Those
families who are the prime applicants for socially-assisted housing
accommodation are the focus of disrepute, resentment and a whole
set of negative attitudes which set them. apart from other Canadian
families.

THE CHANGING POSITION OF THE FAMILY
WITHIN HOUSING POLICY

During the years from the early 1930s through the late 1960s, the
concept of the family appeared to assume a position of centrality
within both public (governmental) and private (market) housing
policies. The origin of this emphasis was both economic and social. In
the depths of the Great Depression, in both the United States and
Canada, unemployment among workers in the construction trades was
extremely high as the decline in housing building from 1929 through
1933 was incredibly steep. In terms of the economy, stimulation of
housing construction appeared to have substantial favourable con-
sequences.

On the social side it had been apparent to many voluntary groups
and governmental organizations that a substantial proportion of families
in both urban and rural locations in North America were living in what
could only be described as slums. Thus the early efforts in the United
States to build housing through the Public Works Administration and
to improve existing housing through the Works Progress Administration
were to some degree the economic and social sides of the same housing
coin.? Similar objectives were implicit in Canada’s enactment of the
Dominion Housing Act, 1935, and the National Housing Acts of 1938
and 1944.

In those years, there was little or no doubt that the beneficiary of
housing policies and programs ought to be “the family”, defined as
two parents with one or more dependent children and perhaps one or
more persons related by blood or marriage, living together in the
same household. These arrangements were considered both the normal

Housing for Low-Income Families 167

and desirable state of social development within the society. Since the
proportion of persons over age 65 was less than 6 per cent, the housing
requirements of the elderly were not considered to have the same
priority. Similarly, since there was little or no sympathy for the
unmarried mother who wished to retain her child or for the separated
or divorced person with responsibility for dependent children, little or
no thought was given to the housing requirements of these groups.
Rather, the twin thrusts of economic benefit resulting from increased
activity in housing construction and social benefit consequent upon the
re-housing of disadvantaged families from the most inadequate housing,
were considered the top, if not the only, policy priorities.

During the 1970s, these emphases were altered. The reasons for a
shift away from the centrality of the family within housing policy
toward other priorities are both economic and social in origin.
Economic problems of the 1970s in North America — simultaneous
unemployment and inflation — were very different from those of the
pre-war period. Moreover, the social circumstances in which a great
many family units or households now find themselves are quite different
from those which were the norm in the pre-war period. Whatever the
explanation, there can be little doubt that the family, and particularly
the low-income family, has lost its position of highest priority within
public and private housing policies.

A “family of low income” is defined in the National Housing Act*
as a family that receives a total family income that, in the opinion of
CMHC, is insufficient to permit it to rent housing accommodation
adequate for its needs at current rentals in the area in which the
family lives. In several of the major legislative acts passed by the
governments of the provinces in recent years, this definition has been
expanded to include the possibility of purchasing as well as renting
housing. It is significant that the federal definition does not include
this concept which seems to imply that families of low income are
expected to be tenants rather than home owners. Paradoxically, a good
many of the federal-provincial housing programs initiated in the 1970s
were intended to enable families with quite modest incomes to assume
the responsibilities of home ownership.

THE HOUSING CONDITIONS OF CANADIAN FAMILIES

In Canada’s written presentation to Habitat (The United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements) in June 1976, a considerable
degree of justifiable satisfaction was expressed officially. The presenta-
tion on “Shelter” began:

168 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

By any standard, Canadians are among the best-housed people in the
world. For example, in 1971, only 2.7 per cent of all Canadian
dwellings lacked piped water and the average number of persons per
room was perhaps the lowest in the world at just 0.7. Some 60 per cent
of all dwellings were single-detached houses. A similar percentage were
occupant-owned, The level of household amenities was remarkably
high}

Canada does have generally a high-quality stock. The average
number of rooms per dwelling in 1971 was 5.4, a slight increase from
1961.° The proportion of crowded dwellings (defined as dwellings in
which the number of persons exceeds the number of rooms) has
dropped from 18.8 per cent in 1951 to 16.5 per cent in 1961 and
9.4 per cent in 1971.7 This fortunate reduction in crowding is in part
a reflection of an increase in the size of new houses but is due also to
the decreasing size of the Canadian family.

An examination of all the traditional housing indicators conceals
significant regional variations. For example, although less than 3 per
cent of all Canadian dwellings lacked piped water, the figure in 1971
for the Prairie provinces was 8 per cent.® In the same year in the
Atlantic provinces, 27 per cent of occupied dwellings lacked exclusive
use of a bath or shower compared with only 3.6 per cent in the
province of Ontario.? Approximately 500,000 dwelling units in Canada
(about 8 per cent of the total stock) lacked basic facilities in 1971,
that is, an indoor toilet, running water, a bath or shower.!° Most of
these dwellings are in rural areas or smaller urban centres. Very often
the situation is due to a lack of municipal water and sewage systems
outside the traditional built-up areas. The Canadian presentation to
Habitat noted, however, that “the other major factor is poverty.”

In 1971, over 25 per cent of “low-income” families occupied dwellings
without bath facilities. Poor people also tend to occupy old dwellings.
Of households earning less than $4,000 in 1971, some 40 per cent
owned houses built before 1940.11

“Low income”, in this context, consisted of families with incomes
below a threshold for each family size, implying that those urban
families falling below these figures must spend at least 70 per cent of
total income for food, shelter and clothing. This measure is acknow-
ledged to be crude and somewhat arbitrary. In recent years, a family
is considered to be “low income” when its income is somewhere
between 50 and 56 per cent of the national average, with adjustments
made for community size.

The most recent major study of housing conditions in Canada was
undertaken in 1974 by CMHC in conjunction with Statistics Canada.1*
This survey is described by the corporation as “the most detailed study

Housing for Low-Income Families 169

of housing ever done in Canada.” The overall impression conveyed
by a brief summary of a 23-volume survey of housing units is captured
in the following paragraph.

The basic picture that emerges is that by almost any measure Canadians
in the urban part of the country are well housed. The majority of the
stock is less than 25 years old, is of good quality, has most of the
facilities generally considered necessary, and provides a relatively high
average amount of space per person. Some problems of distribution
are apparent in specific cities, however, and gaining access to adequate
housing apparently imposes a high financial burden on some special
groups. In addition, although most Canadians are well housed, some
are spending a large part of their income on shelter.1*

This summary reinforces the view of most Canadians that, with the
exception of a very tight market in such cities as Toronto, Ottawa and
Vancouver, Canadians do not face a housing crisis. Moreover, the
dividing line between the so-called “high financial burden” and an
appropriate proportion of income to shelter cost is 25 per cent. Since
a large proportion of Canadian home-owners and tenants who have
acquired accommodation within their own resources have, at one time
or another, and sometimes for long periods, devoted more than 25 per
cent of their gross income to shelter cost, this argument will fail to
change the attitudinal position of most who will read the results of the
survey.

In terms of the adequacy of the Canadian housing stock the 1974
survey was designed to overcome enumerator bias by eliminating
judgments of physical condition through the preparation and checking
of a list of eleven undesirable characteristics. These were later combined
into an overall measure of “good, fair, and poor” according to the
nature of the fault.° Nearly 90 per cent of the 3.3 million housing
units surveyed were judged to be in good external condition, only
about 8 per cent were classed as poor, and less than 3 per cent as fair.
In absolute terms this means that about 350,000 dwelling units only,
were rated as poor or fair.

Although it is clear that serious problems continue, the general
impression of the 1974 survey (in which all twenty-three census areas
were included) is the most satisfactory picture of Canadian housing
stock that has emerged throughout the forty years in which housing
conditions were surveyed as a part of the decennial census. Renters
were more than twice as likely as owners to be living in poor housing
conditions — nearly 12 per cent of the rental stock was in poor external
condition compared with less than 5 per cent of the home-ownership
units. Sharing or lack of facilities are no longer significant problems in
most of urban Canada — only 1.8 per cent of all units surveyed, or
59,000 dwellings, suffered from such inadequacies.

170 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

The whole question of the use of space as a measure of crowding
was carefully studied. By the traditional definition - households with
an average Occupancy of less than one room per person — only 4.4 per
cent of the units (148,000) were crowded in the 23 census metropolitan
areas in 1974.16

The survey devoted much attention to house prices and rents,
although it must be recognized that substantial increases have occurred
since 1974. The significant measurement was that of “affordability”,
where the traditional definition of a payment of more than 25 per cent
of household income on shelter was considered a form of deprivation.
Around 600,000 or one-fifth of all metropolitan households paid more
than 25 per cent of their income on shelter; more importantly, 180,000
of these households paid more than 40 per cent of their income to
obtain and maintain their dwellings.17 Tenants have greater problems
in this context than owners, a situation which is apparently explained
by the fact that the average income of renters is substantially lower
than that of owners.

The most serious problems for Canadian society are implicit in the
conclusion, which confirms many previous studies, concerning overall
housing needs: lower income households are most likely to have
problems of affordability. At the lower end of the income scale, many
households spent more than 50 per cent of their income on shelter; by
contrast, households at the higher income levels spend less than 10
per cent. The survey claimed a significant discovery was that large
numbers of middle or upper-income groups have apparent problems of
affordability.1*5 The survey concluded that, overall, about 60 per cent
of all households in urban Canada had none of the problems described
as: dwelling-unit inadequacy, over-crowding or problems of afford-
ability. About one-third of all households (1,025,000) had one problem
only: 180,000 were living in inadequate dwellings, 298,000 were over-
crowded and 547,000 were paying more than 25 per cent of total
household income. “Affordability, therefore, emerges as the largest
single housing problem.”?9 :

A significant proportion of so-called “low income” families are in
receipt of social assistance payments made available through federal-
provincial or provincial-municipal social welfare programs. In fact, for
the poorest 20 per cent of families in 1971, about one-third of total
income was earned as wages and salaries and almost half was received
as payments by governments,?° either through universal transfer pro-
grams such as family allowances and old age security allowances, or
through direct social assistance payments. While it is true that an
important proportion of such families in the lowest income levels do
occupy satisfactory housing, particularly elderly persons and couples,
the evidence in both urban and rural areas pointed conclusively to the

Housing for Low-Income Families 171

fact that the condition of housing and income levels are directly related.
The poorest housing in every community is occupied by the poorest
families; since the poorest families often include larger numbers of
children than the average, they tend to be crowded and their needs for
the basic physical amenities are often unmet. It is these families for
whom, in the years 1945-64, most attention was paid when the concepts
of slum clearance, urban redevelopment and urban renewal were under
consideration, both for purposes of program definition and for purposes
of program implementation.

The housing conditions of Canada’s native peoples are generally the
most unsatisfactory and indeed deplorable. When substantial numbers
of members of such groups migrate to urban centres, as in the case of
Winnipeg, Regina and Toronto, they move almost immediately to the
bottom of the socio-economic distribution, exist for the most part with
income provided through public social welfare programs, and occupy
some of the poorest housing in the nation. This is not as evident in
Toronto where a group of native people have formed a non-profit
housing company which, with federal and provincial funds, has pur-
chased accommodation which its rents to families within its community
and has recently constructed an apartment building for elderly persons.

It can readily be understood, therefore, that Canadian families of
lowest income, of largest size, or where one of the two parents is
deceased or has left the family unit, constitute the majority of applicants
for public housing accommodation. If, as seems desirable, the housing
management organization created under federal-provincial-municipal or
provincial auspices considers the need for housing as the prime deter-
minant in selecting families for accommodation in relatively scarce
public housing, the social situation in such housing projects becomes a
deterrent to normal family life on the one hand and an obstacle to
further public participation in housing programs on the other.

There are, depending upon the definition used, perhaps 150,000
publicly provided non-institutional dwelling units available for “low-
income families” throughout this country. At the same time, there are
approximately one-half million one-parent families,2? most of whom
have very low incomes and would score highly on any point-rating
system designed to determine priority for public housing accommoda-
tion. It is thus entirely conceivable that every public housing dwelling
unit in Canada could be occupied by a one-parent family, if need were
the sole criterion.

Alternatively, the needs of the elderly in Canada for decent and
adequate housing accommodation are substantial, when one considers
that more than half of all Canadian individuals over the age of 65
receive a guaranteed income supplement, determined on a means test,
in addition to the basic old age security allowance. Elderly couples and

172 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

individuals might well occupy a great deal more of the available public
housing accommodation if need were the only criterion. In both cases,
however, need is not the only criterion because the desirability of
social viability (community) within the housing project itself is central
in the thinking of every intelligent public housing administrator and
because the size of the available accommodation is a factor which
must be taken into consideration.

More important perhaps than these observations, is the fact that the
nature and distribution of poverty in Canada is such that antagonism
has developed toward the nuclear family, particularly in its role as
applicant for public housing. Many municipalities who must initiate
the requests for intergovernmental housing activity throughout the
country have not only been overly cautious, but often entirely dis-
criminatory in their choice of housing programs so as to exclude poor
families, regardless of whether they were headed by one or two
parents. The reasons for such discrimination are entirely clear from a
management standpoint, but from a policy point of view are entirely
unacceptable.

HOUSING DEMAND: CHANGING SOCIAL PATTERNS

The facts of change within the Canadian family are now so well-
known that they merit but brief reiteration in this discussion. Large
families, so fashionable during the period of the baby boom from
1944-1959, have given way to the newly-fashionable small family with
one or two children at most and sometimes none at all. Although the
number of marriages has been maintained at a relatively high level in
comparison with the pre-war period, it is known, even in the absence
of accurate data, that in the 1970s a great many two-person families
(households) were formed by unmarried couples,

In addition to these facts there are other personal social innovations
which strongly affect the relationship between supply and demand in
the housing market. There are a great many more non-family house-
holds than ever before and they are of unusual composition. In the
1950s a non-family household might consist of the following: two
sisters, one sibling taking care of another sibling of the opposite sex
in their old age, or a son or daughter living with an elderly parent and
providing care and support. The household compositions now so
prevalent were relatively unknown.

Today, a demand for housing may come forward from: households
composed of two, three or four persons of the same sex who are
unrelated; common-law partners without children; or, single persons
who in the affluence of the 1960s or early 1970s were able to accumu-

Housing for Low-Income Families 173

late the capital required for a downpayment on a single detached or
condominium home or, if not, certainly possess sufficient resources to
rent a privately marketed apartment. Whatever the nature of the house-
holds which constitute the demand for housing units, the facts are
that firstly, the nuclear family is no longer the pre-eminent source of
demand for housing, for sale or for rent; and secondly, the newly-
constituted households of the 1970s demand a somewhat different type
of housing accommodation. Their requirement is a set of spaces and
facilities which would not usually meet the requirements of the tradi-
tional family of parents and children.

It cannot be argued, with the exception of the situation in certain
housing markets at certain times within certain communities, that the
housing demands of these new types of social arrangements have made
it impossible for families to acquire housing accommodation. But it is
certainly worth arguing that these new demands have induced investors
in housing development to concentrate their energies in meeting the
requirements of these new markets, rather than to continue building
accommodation that might be more adequate for traditional family
requirements. Moreover, it is possible that this shift, which became
evident in the early 1960s, did reduce the push toward innovation in
housing construction which might have reduced the cost of traditional
family housing. These tentative arguments will never be settled because
it is a fact that the entire Canadian housing demand-supply situation
changed relatively suddenly and very strongly in the early 1960s in
the direction of multiple housing, primarily for rental, rather than
single-detached housing, primarily for sale.

It is important then, in this context, to separate out the private
market from the public or assisted-housing sector. In the private
market, the housing industry responded very quickly after 1960 to the
changing demands of the newly-formed family or household types by
shifting the kind of construction in which it was engaged. It would
not have done this if it were not a fact that multiple housing’ in high-
tise form in the large urban centre was far more profitable than the
building of four or five single-family detached homes on an acre of
ground in the typical suburban municipality. High-rise apartment
buildings, which became particularly evident by the late 1960s through-
out Canada’s twenty-three census metropolitan areas, were both an
economic and social response to changing family conditions. Although
we know how many single-parent families exist at the time of the
census and although we know how many dwelling units are occupied
at any particular time of estimate, we do not know exactly how many
dwelling units are occupied by each of the substantial variety of house-
hold relationships which have developed in recent years.

In the private market, however, the shift in response to social change

174 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

was not only relatively quick and extremely profitable but painless,
both for the developer and the host municipality which welcomed the
in-migrants to the community because they brought needed manpower
to the labour market and expenditures to the retail and wholesale
enterprises of the community. Moreover, private market multiple
housing in the 1960s was almost entirely designed for rental accom-
modation and tenants in the private sector were notoriously undemand-
ing from the point of view of local politicians. It is only in recent years
that the costs of these housing responses (in terms of the provision of
municipal services) have been carefully considered and have been
found in many cases to have exceeded the benefits of increased local
tax revenues.

In the public sector, however, which combines a mixture of self-
interest and charitable impulses on the part of local politicians, local
community groups, and elected representatives in higher levels of
governments, the changes in the family were not so welcome. Fewer
and fewer intact families consisting of two parents and one or more
dependent children presented themselves as candidates for public
housing accommodation. By the mid-1970s, in Ontario at least, applica-
tions from one-parent families headed by a woman constituted from
one-half to two-thirds of all applications received by public housing
registries in the medium-sized and larger urban centres. In 1971, 80
per cent of all single-parent families were headed by a woman but, in
the area of publicly-provided accommodation for low-income families,
more than 95 per cent of applicants from one-parent families were
headed by a woman. These facts, together with the point-rating systems
which had been developed to evaluate the needs of applicants for
housing accommodation, would have led directly to a form of social
segregation which the community could not countenance, even if there
were not strong tendencies towards discrimination at work.

There is now sufficient experience and knowledge of the situation
over the past decades in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and
Vancouver — to name some of the centres of greatest activity — that
few elected and appointed officials in our towns and cities are un-
acquainted, at least by hearsay, with the problems of operation and
management. To be blunt about it, they are both prejudiced and/or
frightened of the problems which might arise if they were to initiate
substantial construction of assisted rental housing for low-income
families. Although they have been assured again and again that only a
very small proportion of such families are troublesome (perhaps 2 to
3 per cent), they have toured housing projects in various provinces,
particularly in Ontario, and they do not like what they see. What they
like to see is well-maintained, well-trimmed, beautifully painted apart-
ment buildings such as those inhabited by families in the upper 15 per

1951-1971
Completions and
Acquisitions Under
F/P and OHC Programs
Metro Toronto
Family 13,300
Senior Citizens? -
Balance Ontario
Family 14,540
Senior Citizens 8,370
Acquired by Purchase
or Take-Over
Metro Toronto
Family 5,885
Senior Citizens -

Balance Ontario

Family 252
Senior Citizens 283
Sub-Totals® 42,630

1972

2,370

1,267
3,537

141

7,339

Table V
Public Housing Provided for Families and Senior Citizens (Ontario, 1951-1979)

1973

4,7858

1,321
3,343

9,497

1974

1,994

1,198
3,167

6,429

1975

T7716

521
5,515

224

7,060

1976

331
3,555

132

108

4,183

1977

292
3,261

3,629

1978

144
2,469

2,686

1Excludes dwelling units acquired through Rent Supplement and

3Includes 333 hostel units.

4As at November 30, 1979,

5Total (1951-1979) equals 84,752.
Source: Ontario Housing Corporation

Accelerated Family Rental Housing Programs.
2Municipality of Metro Toronto is responsible for Senior Citizens in Metro Toronto. Housing stock approximates 11,000 units.

19794

18
1,254

1,299

Say auoauy-mo'y tof Suisnozy

SLT

176 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

cent of the Canadian income distribution. What they do see are some
of the evidences of poverty — the difficulties of maintaining property in
its spanking new condition, the well-used outdoor spaces and facilities,
the occasional evidence of vandalism, and the kinds of pressures on
physical structures which come about as a result of densities per
dwelling unit of five to six or more persons. Moreover, the decision-
makers, primarily the elected and appointed officials of local govern-
ment, have discovered a much safer group upon which to devote their
energies and their charitable instincts: our increasingly large elderly
population.

The evidence is now clearly at hand and some figures may be of
some interest. Table V illustrates the declining proportion of family
housing and the increasing share of senior citizens’ accommodation
within public housing programs initiated in Ontario, the province in
which the greatest activity has occurred since 1951. It is clearly
evident that the construction of new accommodation for families in
Canada’s most populous province has almost dried up. The situation
may be more noticeable outside the municipality of Metropolitan
Toronto in terms of numbers but within Metro itself, it is quite clear.
Family accommodation within public housing is out of favour within
local initiating bodies and little or no pressure is being exerted by
provincial governments to reverse this trend.

On the other hand, almost everyone is pleased that elderly couples
and single elderly individuals are attracting the bulk of attention and
that most new housing accommodation is provided for them. Such
persons are uniformly grateful, do not have children, cause very few
problems of operation and management, pay their rent on time, and
rarely engage in vandalism or other anathemas for public housing
management.

HOUSING SUPPLY: CHANGING PHYSICAL PATTERNS

The response of the house building industry to changes in social
patterns and the new modes of family life which induced new housing
requirements is reflected in the statistics of housing completions by
type of dwelling. From 1961 to 1971, single detached houses in
Canada increased in number by just 20.6 per cent whereas apartments
and flats increased 47.6 per cent.** As a proportion of total dwelling
units completed in specific year, the changing figures were equally
dramatic. In 1949, 13 per cent of all dwelling units completed were
apartments and flats; in 1959, 25 per cent of the completions were in
this form. As the apartment building boom progressed strongly, this

Housing for Low-Income Families 177

proportion rose to 42.5 per cent in 1965 and 50.5 per cent in 1970.7
In the late 1970s, however, as costs increased and as resistance to
high-rise multiple dwellings in downtown urban centres increased
significantly, the proportion dropped to the point where, in 1975, it
was just 34.6 per cent.2° It must be remembered that this proportion
is still substantial as it is based upon a greater number of dwelling
units completed than in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The simple facts of arithmetic do not provide information, however,
concerning the size of accommodation. Almost by definition, the new
apartments of the 1960s were not meant for nuclear families or even
for the one-parent family with dependent children. There were very
few accommodations constructed in Canada in the period 1959-75
which were apartments of three bedrooms or more. The greatest pro-
portion were one-bedroom and bachelor accommodations with many
variations on these themes, for example, junior one-bedrooms and the
like. These accommodations appealed to the single, unmarried person
maintaining his/her own household and to households consisting of
two persons of the same or opposite sex who were a couple but not a
married couple. Such construction, in response to the new life styles,
was easily marketed.

The pressure on costs significantly increased the subsidies (the
difference between the actual full recovery costs of accommodation
provided for families and the rentals which would be collected on a
rent-geared-to-income scale) required in public housing accommoda-
tion. These subsidies began to mount and passed the $100 per unit
per month mark and by the time they passed the $200 per unit per
month mark, there was a considerable negative impression upon the
entire field of assisted rental housing. At the same time that costs
increased faster than incomes, the sale price of houses for purchase
exceeded the financial capacity of families who were considered to be
in the lower half, or even in the lower two-thirds of the middle-income
group. This situation, which was put very clearly in an annual report
of the Nova Scotia Housing Commission under the heading “Low
Rental Family Program”, is the situation in which the Canadian
housing industry found itself in the mid and late 1970s.

Problems are being met in this program as a result of rapidly rising
costs. The capital costs of the program and the returns from the rents
bear little relationship to each other now and the amount of subsidy
to be paid out over the fifty year mortgage term is significant. On the
other hand, the demand for such housing continues to increase because
private market rentals and purchase prices are rising at a correspond-
ingly rapid rate, removing more and more families from the private
market.2?

178 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

INTERGOVERNMENTAL HOUSING POLICY
AND THE FAMILY

The response of both the Government of Canada and the govern-
ments of several provinces to this situation was not to create additional
public rental housing for families but to develop new programs designed
to encourage home purchase by families whose incomes were in the
lower middle or upper segments of the lowest third of the income
distribution. Such programs as the Assisted Home Ownership Program
(AHOP), launched in 1973, and the provincial equivalents, were
designed to push the capacity for home ownership down the income
distribution to the lower portions of the middle income segment or
even below.

It has already been indicated that the cooperative ventures of two
or more levels of government to create assisted rental housing no
longer seriously encompass the needs of Canadian families whose
resources are insufficient to enable them to acquire adequate and
affordable housing in the private market. The shift away from family
accommodation has been demonstrated and the inevitability of increased
activity on behalf of the elderly on the one hand and further encourage-
ment to non-profit and cooperative housing corporations on the other,
is likely to continue through the first half of the 1980s.?* In considera-
tion of this substantial reduction in the availability of housing for the
lowest half of the income distribution, governments have substituted
a variety of programs designed to encourage home ownership by
Canadian families who would normally not have sufficient income to
carry the monthly burdens of principal, interest, taxes and repairs.

The reasoning of the federal government was clearly stated in its
written presentation to Habitat.

Throughout most of the country, home ownership has been viewed as
a social ood, conferring stability on both communities and families.
When, suddenly, it is no longer possible for many persons of average
and even well-above average incomes to become home owners it is
natural to conclude that something is seriously awry.”?

It is very difficult to be optimistic about the future of such home
ownership programs because they are based inevitably upon major
assumptions that may prove to be weakly based. There is, first of all,
the assumption in AHOP that five years hence the income of the
family will have increased. Moreover, a sufficient increase is required
to enable the family to meet the much higher scale of payments when
the mortgage is rewritten at the effective rate of interest then pertaining.

If the prospects for economic growth and development and thus the
prospects for expanded employment were encouraging, these assump-

Housing for Low-Income Families 179

tions might be reasonable. All the forecasts in the late 1970s, however,’
appeared to indicate that economic growth for the first half of the
1980s would be relatively modest and that unemployment would con-
tinue to be a serious problem for the Canadian economy. When one
realizes that it would be considered a triumph for the federal and
provincial governments, working together, to reduce the percentage of
unemployment in the labour force to 6 per cent, it is sobering to
reflect upon Beveridge’s classic contention that full employment would
suggest a tolerance of perhaps 2 per cent frictional unemployment at
any one time. In Canada unemployment has successively increased
from 4 to 6 per cent and now we appear destined to have an 8 per
cent rate of unemployment accompanied by inflation. Under all these
circumstances, family policy in Canada can scarcely count upon appro-
priate housing policies to meet the significant need of an additional
148,000 families and/or 215,000 households formed annually in the
period 1976-1981.%°

NOTES

1Ontario, Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto
(Toronto: June 1977) p. 232.

2J. M. Mackintosh, Housing and Family Life (London: Cassell and Co.
Ltd., 1952); Albert Rose, Regent Park (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1958); D. M. Wilner et al., The Housing Environment and Family
Life (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1962).

3Nathan Strauss, The Seven Myths of Housing (New York: Knopf, 1945)
pp. 12-28, 127-143.

4Canada, The National Housing Act, Revised Statutes, c. N-10, as
amended through 1978-79 (Ottawa: 1979) S. 2, Definitions.

5Canada, Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, Human Settlement in
Canada, distributed at Habitat, June 1976, p. 15.

8Ibid., Table 2.2, p. 17.

Udem.

8Human Settlement in Canada, pp. 15-17.
8[bid., p. 17.

idem.

11Human Settlement in Canada, p. 17.
12]bid., p. 17, fn 1.

183CMHC, Housing in Urban Canada: An Overview Based on the 1974
Survey of Housing Units (Ottawa: 1977) p. 12, plus eight tables.

180 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

147bid., p. 2.
18] bid., p. 5.
16{bid., p. 7.
1 bid., p. 10.
18Idem.

19] bid., p. 12.

20Human Settlement in Canada, op. cit., p. 5. See also, Canada Year
Book, 1975, Table 6.4, p. 254. Nevertheless nearly 600,000 households of
the one million considered to be below the poverty line in 1972 owned their
own homes, and 85 per cent of these were free of mortgage debt. (Human
Settlement in Canada, p. 21.)

21Wigwamen Incorporated, Housing Programs in Ontario, a special edition
of Housing Ontario, Jan./ Feb. 1976, Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 15.

22Human Settlement in Canada, p. 5.

28This is closely related to greatly increased costs of home purchase and
rental housing. It has been estimated that only 30 per cent of Ontario
families in 1974 could carry the costs of home purchase with less than
25 per cent of their gross family income. The comparable figure for 1967
was 70 per cent of families. Ontario Economic Council, Issues and Alter-
natives 1976, Housing, Table 4.

24Human Settlement in Canada, Table 2.2, p. 17.

25Canada, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canadian Housing
Statistics, 1975 (Ottawa: March 1976). Percentages calculated from Table
9,p.9.

26] bid.

27Province of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Housing Commission, Annual
Report (for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1974) p. 9.

*8Late in 1978 the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs announced that
the traditional financial arrangements for public housing for families and
senior citizens would cease on December 31, 1978. Henceforth, provinces,
municipalities, and non-profit organizations were to seek mortgage financing
in the private market in lieu of the 90 per cent federal (capital) loan.

29Human Settlement in Canada, p. 15.

80Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978, Table 115, p. 94.

CHAPTER 9

Canada’s Housing Problem:
Insoluble Crisis or Intractable Dilemma?

It is still apparent, as I wrote in 1968,! that Canada does not suffer
from a lack of “housing policy”, if housing policy is equated in any
substantial measure with housing legislation. More legislation, in terms
of both the quantity and quality of enactments, has been passed since
1964 than in the whole of the previous century. Legislation, however,
is not tantamount to housing policy per se or to the implementation
of a course of action intended by the government enacting such legis-
lation. Nevertheless, within the past fifty years we have progressed from
the first awakening of federal concern to a situation in which all levels
of government ~ federal, provincial and municipal — are deeply involved
with the housing of every individual and family in the nation.

Housing policy never built a housing unit. The mere enunciation of
the objectives of a public or voluntary body, and the passage of legis-
lation through which such objectives are intended to be attained, are
not sufficient by themselves. Ail the protestations of elected and
appointed officials, of house builders and land developers, and all the
pleas and pressures of voluntary groups and citizens’ organizations,
will be of little avail unless the national economy can afford an alloca-
tion of resources commensurate with the measurement of human need
for housing.

The limits of housing policy become clearer with each passing year.

181

182 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

The federal government can indeed supply funds for investment in
residential building activity, but the major portion of such activity will,
and must, continue to be financed through private financial institutions
(unless we find ourselves, through revolution, war or anarchy, in an
entirely different society than at present). Although it is desirable that
investment in residential building for the public sector increase con-
siderably, most Canadians still prefer to acquire accommodation within
the normal or traditional housing markets; that is, they prefer to buy
their own homes if they can manage to do so, or they prefer to rent
apartments under private management.

If these assumptions are correct, federal housing policy is primarily
an instrumentality to encourage the assumption by the provinces of,
their rightful constitutional responsibilities. In my view, the federal
stance has been basically correct. Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation? should stimulate, encourage and work in every way ~
short of encroaching on the constitutional prerogatives of the provinces
— towards better housing and living conditions for all. It could accom-
plish this in part through education, research and active involvement in
conferences and programs designed to improve public understanding of
the whole situation and its constituent parts.

More important are the resources — the hundreds of millions of
dollars per annum assigned by the federal government to CMHC for
the implementation. of programs permissible under the NHA. The
corporation, as an agent of the Government of Canada, must act as
the custodian of federal housing policy implied by the NHA or
enunciated by the Government of Canada. Nevertheless, CMHC faces
severely realistic limits which become the boundaries of national housing
policy. For example, if all provincial housing corporations emulated,
in full measure, the activity of the OHC in past years, there might not
have been sufficient resources for allocation by the CMHC; and if all
provinces had been equally active, the total public housing program
would be in the neighbourhood of some 25,000 to 35,000 dwelling
units per annum.

Allegations that there has never been a national housing policy have
been made continuously since the 1930s. More important than criticism
is an effort to understand and work for an elevation of the priority
assigned to residential building within total capital investment. While
this is a desirable objective it must be seen within the context of the
total requirements of this nation. We require a vast investment in all
forms of social capital — specialized educational facilities, roads and
other forms of transportation, hospitals and other forms of medical
institutions, and special institutions for the elderly, the mentally
retarded, and the emotionally ill. At the same time, we require a vast

Canada’s Housing Problem 183

investment in human resources — the training and retraining of hundreds
of thousands of persons who are economically unfit to take their place
in the society that is rapidly emerging in the last two decades of this
century.

The list of requirements is almost endless. If it can be argued that
there is no national housing policy, it can also be argued that there is
no national transportation policy, no national policy in the utilization
of natural resources, no national policy with respect to the utilization
of human resources, no national social welfare policy, and so on. The
' heart of this argument is that housing must take its place within the
context of all needs, demands, and pressures which our entire political
and economic system faces today and will probably always face in
varying degrees. This is not to suggest that housing must take a back
seat and that the priority for housing expansion must always remain
low; but it must be seen as one major requirement among many. If this
could be clearly understood, the limits of housing policy may be more
readily amenable to appropriate political and social action.

There is now emerging within the provinces a new spirit of recogni-
tion of the need for decent, safe and sanitary housing. It is important
to ensure, through pressure upon elected and appointed officials in
municipal and provincial governments, that the enunciation of fine
phrases, excellent legislation and stated objectives will be translated
into the reality of physical accommodation adequate to the needs of
the various segments of our population.

There was consternation in some metropolitan areas, in the early
1970s, that the list of applications for public housing was growing each
year or remained generally stable at a high level. In the field of housing,
as in many other fields of human activity, it can be argued that “nothing
succeeds like success.” There were more applications for public housing
than in the. past because applicants came to believe that they had a
chance to be accommodated, even though the time lapse from applica-
tion to occupancy might be from six months to two years. Furthermore,
an applicant always has the right to decline at the critical moment and
to reaffirm his faith in his capacity to make his own way without the
assistance of this new form of “social service”.

Since 1976 the number of applications for both family and senior
citizens’ accommodation has been declining steadily throughout Ontario.
The Metropolitan Toronto Housing Registary reported that total active
applications at December 31, 1979 were less than 50 per cent those
in June 1978. In the midst of unemployment and inflation the needy
appeared to have given up the hope of obtaining assisted housing. For
some bureaucrats, however, the figures demonstrated that the need had
been met.

186 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Many Canadians have written and spoken in the past twenty-five
years of Canada’s “permanent housing crisis”. In part, this phraseology
was used to counter the argument that the situation at any one time
was particularly unusual, particularly threatening to more families and
individuals than in past years and perhaps even more unusual than in
the period of intense shortage following World War Two. For those
Canadians who urgently required housing accommodation in the second
half of the 1940s there were literally no houses to buy and none to
rent, unless one was relatively well-off financially. Yet, in July 1946,
C. D. Howe? enunciated a national housing program with a goal of
80,000 new dwelling units per annum. This seemed an incredible target
for a nation which averaged some 43,000 new dwelling units per annum
during the previous twenty years. Yet the target was reached by the
early 1950s. However, there have been additional periods of critical
shortage, particularly in the mid-1950s and again in the early 1960s
after several years of severe economic recession.

As stated earlier, Canadians are among the best-housed people in
the world. The fact must be accepted, however, that whatever the
achievement of previous housing goals, attainment of such objectives
has always been followed by increasing expectations, increasing de-
mands, and a significant reduction in the utilization of our housing
stock when measured by the number of persons per dwelling unit.
Ontario, in particular, is very much aware of this phenomenon, which
in a real sense means that all governmental action in stimulating con-
tinued activity in the private housing market and direct public housing
production is a form of tail-chasing. Policies change in order to develop
new programs to enable the supply to accommodate the demand only
to produce a further set of demands which make production appear
continuously inadequate.

In this sense Canada’s housing problem is an insoluble crisis. The
statistics for Canada, like those enunciated earlier for Ontario, reveal
far higher achievements in the early 1970s than in the 1960s. Thus,
there is no question that for a number of years housing production
exceeded the number of new family formations. The product was not,
however, disseminated throughout those households that constitute the
essence of the urgent demand for housing. The result was not, in short,
a simple process of meeting housing need and cutting into the backlog
of unmet housing requirements, but a substantial reduction in the
number of persons per dwelling unit. There are far more units now
occupied by one- or two-person households than ever before and there
are far more units occupied by two or more unrelated single persons.*
This is in part a function of expanded income, but it is also a function
of the distribution of both production and absorption of housing
accommodation.

Canada’s Housing Problem 187

Despite an increase in the proportion of housing production desig-
nated for sale or for rent to low- and lower-middle groups, most of
the produced housing is designed for those who can command the
resources to meet their personal or family requirements without assist-
ance. This takes two forms: single family dwellings of a very high
standard for sale to persons in the upper-fifth or upper-quartile of
income recipients; and, bachelor apartments, junior one-bedroom
apartments, one-bedroom apartments and, perhaps, two-bedroom
apartments which constitute a substantial amount of all rental accom-
modation built since the beginning of the apartment boom in 1959-60.
The proportion of newly built private accommodation for rental con-
sisting of more than two bedrooms has been a very small fraction of
production during the past quarter-century.

The sub-group which has suffered most severely during the very
substantial housing production of the 1960s and the 1970s is usually
described as “the working poor”. These individuals and families would,
in several provinces, receive more income and additional benefits
(depending upon the size of their families) if they were in receipt of
welfare assistance. They remain employed at very low salaries and,
unless they happened to have purchased a home at least ten or fifteen
years ago at quite modest mortgage interest rates, they will be tenants.
As such, they face not only the problem of rentals that are high in
comparison with their income, but also the fact that very little rental
accommodation is available for large families. It has been estimated
that the “working poor” number as many as one-quarter of the entire
Canadian population — some five to six million persons within perhaps
one to one-and-a-half million households. Some are intact families,
some are families where the mother is attempting to support dependent
children without a male adult figure in the household, and some are
persons over the age of 65 who continue in the labour force but whose
income is relatively modest either because of lack of skill or because
they work only part-time.

The group described as the “working poor” face not only a shortage
of housing accommodation but an incapacity to survive in the housing
market, even if they can enter it because of very low downpayments
required, as is the case from time to time, or because of new innova-
tions such as condominium ownership, assisted home ownership, co-
operative housing, and so on. Their problem is essentially that of
meeting the regular payments, whether they be in the form of repay-
ments on a mortgage together with rapidly rising municipal taxes,
whether they be payments to the co-operative organization which
provided them with the accommodation at a very low downpayment,
or whether they are in fact attempting to struggle in an increasingly
tight rental market.

188 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

THE ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
TO AN INTRACTABLE DILEMMA

The most significant set of assumptions concerning solutions to
Canada’s housing problem relates to the degree of governmental inter-
vention to be taken in the housing market. Politically, there are persons
with a leftist approach (not confined to any one political party) who
believe that massive intervention by one or more levels of government
will solve the entire crisis. The fact is that, by contrast with the
situation in the 1940s and 1950s there is a tremendous amount of
intervention or activity by the Government of Canada, by provincial
governments, by regional governments, and by municipal governments.
One must maintain an attitude of constructive scepticism towards the
view that government or intergovernmental activity will somehow
provide the answers to these extremely difficult problems.

The essence of the dilemma with respect to the role of government
rests in the nature of the housing industry. It remains true that all
dwellings (with the exception of a small number built by individuals
or small groups who form a true co-operative) are built by private
enterprise. The house-building industry in Canada - large development
institutions, small builders and some traditional craftsmen who build
two or three houses a year — produce all the housing that is added to
the total stock each year; about 85 per cent of this total production
is on the builder’s own account. The total capital investment in resi-
dential construction (public and private) is now of the order of $13
to $14 billion per annum.5

There is, in fact, no merit in the contention that further massive
governmental intervention will solve the problem. This is not to deny
that governments will develop new programs, and that governments
will stimulate the house-building industry through financial programs,
design competitions, and emphasis on innovations in construction — all
intended to cut the costs to the ultimate purchasers, whether they be
individuals, families, or public housing corporations. The allegation
that house building should, however, be a government activity only,
has no merit; there would be absolutely no advantage in such a take-
over. This proposal, sometimes made by politicians and by some so-
called liberal-progressive organizations in our society, would simply
mean that civil service organizations would embrace huge staffs of
construction workers. This would surely not cut down the complexities
of housing production, would not simplify the process of housing
production, or cut down production costs.

The dilemma consists in the nature and amount of governmental
intervention that would be sufficient to achieve the social goals of
housing policies. There is no easy answer but our experience during

Canada’s Housing Problem 189

the past twenty-five years indicates that we have not yet reached the
limit of government intervention in this area. Governmental activity
is bound to increase, if only for the fact that house building, as an
economic activity in Canada, may have a significant contra-cyclical
impact on the period of little or no growth frequently predicted for
the early 1980s by a wide variety of economists, public officials and
politicians.

Governmental intervention is bound to increase and spread into new
programs as certain activities either reach their peak or fail to meet
their objectives because of tremendous price inflation. It is no longer
sufficient to advocate (as I did some years ago) that a larger proportion
of total housing production must be assigned to the lowest income
groups; this has been done and the housing crisis has not dissipated.

The three main constituents of this phenomenon in Canadian urban
life are as follows.

i. A substantial increase in immigration occurred in the first half
of the 1970s; net immigration was nearly double that of the
second half of the 1960s. Moreover, in-migration to the larger
urban centres from smaller areas of population, villages and
towns coincided with increased immigration to Canada.

2. The proportion of non-family households, as well as those with-
out children or with only one child, increased significantly. The
housing industry reacted to a large group of relatively affluent
small households and created a substantial amount of housing
accommodation to meet their specific requirements. The absence
of children is a factor of considerable importance to the profit-
ability of those firms which have concentrated upon the con-
struction of multiple dwellings, most often in high-rise form.

3. Very substantial numbers of the most highly educated, relatively
young families with few children have come to view the heart of
our urban centres — the downtown core of such metropolitan
areas as Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver - as
prime residential areas and the most desirable living sites for the
last quarter of the twentieth century.

It is probable that, among 23.5 million Canadians (the estimate for
1978),® more than 6 million are persons who arrived in Canada since
January 1st, 1946 and children they have borne in this country.
Immigrants have had a profound effect on the housing market in all
aspects. A substantial number are individuals and families who place
a great deal of emphasis on home ownership and they work hard in
order to achieve home ownership. Moreover, many older areas in the
central cities of our large metropolitan areas have been preferred by
certain groups of newcomers who have devoted much effort and
money to home improvement and, indeed, rehabilitation of entire

190 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

neighbourhoods. To a substantial degree they have been responsible
for reversing the downward slide of many older neighbourhoods which,
before 1950, were identified as severely blighted or vulnerable to blight
and slum conditions. If such conditions had continued to prevail
throughout downtown Toronto and other cities, there might have been
a great deal more slum clearance than has been evident to date.

The largest group of new young entrants in the housing market are
Canadians born during a vast upsurge in the birthrate during the years
1944-61. For some years in the 1950s births approximated 500,000 —
about twice the number for the second half of the 1930s. Even though
there was a rapid decline in the 1960s and 1970s, new births are still
at the rate of about 350,000 per annum. The generation born after
1944 continues to reach maturity and those entering the housing
market in the early 1980s are most likely to have been born between
1950 and 1955. Similarly, the OHC has noted that among their appli-
cants there is a comparable trend towards those under the age of 25 in
contrast with the experience during the years 1965-71.

The trend towards a preference for housing accommodation in
previously elegant downtown neighbourhoods (which had deteriorated
somewhat over many years) has meant a revitalization for such neigh-
bourhoods and has had significant consequences for older residents and
their tenants.” It has recently been noted that one of the most import-
ant industries in Canadian urban centres is the renovation industry.®
In the mid-1970s older homes commanded much higher prices than
they did in the 1960s. This eliminated many long-term residents in
older areas of the heart of metropolitan areas. The older middle or
low-income homeowners did not fare badly as they probably received
a much higher price than would be anticipated a decade before; it
was the displaced tenants who were the victims because of their
inability to find accommodation elsewhere.

In years past these now displaced tenant families and individuals
were an additional source of income to the older resident owners. If
public housing were available they may have been accommodated as
a consequence of their displacement; but for that group known as
“roomers” — single persons, particularly middle-aged and older — there
is little likelihood of alternative accommodation, except in even more
deteriorated neighbourhoods at probably higher rentals.

These interrelated trends in the core of central cities have raised the
question: “If the city is to be denied as a site for housing accommoda-
tion for ‘poor people’ or low-income families, and if there is not suffi-
cient accommodation in publicly-provided housing (particularly beyond
the boundaries of the city), where are these individuals and families to
live?” For the first time in Canadian history it appears that the lowest
third, or even the lowest half of the income distribution have no

Canada’s Housing Problem 191

alternative to the overly expensive and, for the most part, physically
and socially inadequate accommodation they must seek in the most
crowded and least desirable neighbourhoods in our communities.

PROSPECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO HOUSING DILEMMAS

The presumptive solution lies surely within the realm of resource
allocation. Herein, however, rests a series of interconnected dilemmas
and difficulties facing both public and private managers of our economic
development. It is easy to grossly over simplify the situation and state
that, were we to allocate a more substantial proportion of our annual
product to residential housing, we would very soon solve the problem
of insufficient housing accommodation for all Canadians.

The question remains: “From which sectors of the Canadian
economy shall we divert resources to meet what was, in the mid-1970s,
the most significant and burdensome housing crisis since the end of
the Second World War?” Is it possible to argue that our gross national
product is expanding rapidly and that further resources could be
diverted to residential construction or housing improvement and
modernization; and that, at the same time, we could take care finan-
cially of all the social requirements, as well as investment in non-
tesidential construction (factories, plants and equipment), let alone
such public expenditures as roads and transportation facilities, in a
society approaching total urbanization?

It is difficult to escape a pessimistic conclusion. Although it could be
suggested that additional resources should be diverted to residential
construction (and this proposal will be made again and again), the
fact is that there is a statistically sufficient amount of housing available
for Canadian requirements. At the bottom of the income distribution
the situation remains much the same as it has during the 1970s. In
Ontario there has been a very substantial expansion in most forms of
housing accommodation available through federal-provincial programs
for low and moderate-income groups. Nevertheless, the need appears
to remain at a high level. The problem is not supply, therefore, but
effective demand; it is not simply a question of housing but a matter
of income.®

Such reasoning has been influential in promoting one major federal-
provincial housing initiative of the 1970s — the rent supplement pro-
gram ~ and one significant proposition now under debate — the provision
of housing or shelter allowances to the needy. A rent supplement
program has both social and economic advantages. The dispersion of
a proportion of families in need of housing assistance throughout the
privately owned housing stock has clear potential for the integration

192 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

of low-income households within neighbourhoods containing middle
and upper-middle income families. In its original form, however,
whereby the housing authority paid the landlord the difference between
market rental and the tenant’s rent paying capacity, the program
diverted but did not add to the housing stock.

In recent years a variety of federal-provincial programs (described
in Ontario as the Community Integrated Program, the Accelerated
Rental Program, the Assisted Rental Program and the Community
Sponsored Housing Program) encouraged new housing construction
with a stipulation that up to 25 per cent of the dwellings could be rent
supplement units, with tenants to come from low-income groups or
selected from housing authority waiting lists. By the end of the 1970s
there were nearly 12,500 such dwellings under management or agree-
ment in Ontario.

Shelter or housing allowances are a late 1970s concept to strengthen
or maintain demand and security of tenure among low-income house-
holds. In British Columbia the SAFER (Shelter Allowances for Elderly
Residents) program was instituted by 1976-1977. Older persons paying
more than 30 per cent of income for shelter (subject to certain income
and rental limits) could receive a monetary allowance. A report
evaluating the program was not available early in 1980 but it is known
that the program has not increased the quality of accommodation.

From the governmental point of view rent supplement and shelter
allowance programs have distinct economic advantages. They do not
require major capital expenditures in expanding the opportunities of
low-income households in the housing market. At the same time total
subsidies may be very heavy in years of scarce rental accommodation
and near-zero vacancy rates.

Some of the basic questions include such complete unknowns as the
proportion of the housing stock that should desirably be under public
ownership and management on behalf of low-income groups. In recent
years there has been increasing resistance, in Ontario as well as else-
where in Canada, to the provision of public housing on two bases.
There is the well-known and traditional opposition to the location of
such projects within many neighbourhoods, particularly in the com-
munities of the 1950s and thereafter which constitute the suburban
and dormitory areas within census metropolitan areas. There is the
telated resistance by many municipal authorities to the provision of
public housing in any form except for the elderly. The traditional
prejudices against failure in an affluent society on the part of a family
head continue strong.

There is also a widely held attitude throughout the nation that
“troubled” families — families of low income, families who are included
within the definition of the “working poor”, families with a male head

Canada’s Housing Problem 193

who has little skill and little capacity within the labour market, families
without a male head — are “troublesome” in terms of behaviour with
neighbours and concerning relationships within the family unit. There
is no doubt that some of these prejudices are founded on experience in
that poverty, particularly within large groupings, breeds maladjustment
between parents, between parents and children, and between families
and their neighbours. There is not the slightest doubt that the system
of determining priorities among public housing applicants does and
must give weight to families with relatively little income, families that
have many members and who may find it extremely difficult to cope
with the problems of child development and socio-economic progression
in a rapidly changing urban society.

A similar question may be raised with respect to the proportion of
public housing accommodation that should be allocated to the elderly.
In the mid-1970s estimates revealed that the great increase since the
late 1960s in the number of public housing units for senior citizens,
both individuals and couples, resulted in accommodation for about
5 per cent of those in Ontario who were 65 years of age or over. What
should the proportion be? Since about one-half of all elderly persons in
Ontario have little income other than the Old Age Security Allowance
and must apply for part or all of the Guaranteed Income Supplement,
it could be argued that as many as one-third to one-half of the elderly
need to be accommodated in publicly-provided housing. Is this con-
ceivable as a social objective and, more important, is it conceivable as
a physical objective?

In the late-1970s the great majority of senior citizens resided in their
own homes; many of these homes are their own by virtue of past
purchase. Yet each large urban centre has its proportion of single
elderly men and women who must rent rooms for a high proportion
of their income, and such communities also have a group of elderly
couples who are tenants. These persons certainly should be provided
with public housing accommodation and it is conceivable that between
10 and 15 per cent of the elderly households should be accommodated
under intergovernmental programs. Nevertheless, no Canadian should
be permitted to forget that the older people are increasing rapidly in
absolute terms; by 2001 this group may number nearly 11 per cent of
the total population.*° There will then have to be a continuous and
substantial production of public housing for senior citizens to maintain
even the current 5 per cent level in such provinces as Ontario; in other
provinces the proportion has not yet approached 5 per cent.

The only way in which our determined and clear-cut statements of
policy will be translated into reality will come as a result of federal-
provincial planning, not from year to year, not for five years at a time,
but for one or two decades ahead if not for the balance of the century.

194 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Each year the federal government should be able to provide the
provincial governments with a statement of the anticipated total housing
programs within the entire nation, whether under private or public
auspices. It should also be able to tell its provincial partners the
financial resources apparently available, and the cost of proposed
housing programs. The next step would be federal-provincial planning
of the allocation of these resources towards the several segments of
our national population requiring housing accommodation.

The private sector should know well in advance: the proportion of
our resources that could be devoted to the well-to-do purchaser of
housing accommodation; the proportion of our resources that could be
made available on terms similar to those of the NHA, to another
segment who may wish to become home-owners; and, the proportion
that will be made available to provide housing, for sale or for rent, to
the mass of our population who require a great deal of assistance.

The time has come for provincial governments to reconsider their
permissive view of local governmental activities in housing and com-
munity planning. A reversal of the traditional approach would mean
that our local governments would be required to plan future develop-
ment within their jurisdiction and, in this course, create housing plans
encompassing annual target objectives and perhaps goals for five or
ten years ahead,

The local option to undertake such planning should be removed and
each urban area (at least to begin with) should set a housing objective
within which the public housing component would be very clearly
identified. If the target objectives were not appropriate in the view of
the responsible provincial ministry or agency, the local plan should be
returned; probably just as many would be returned as the number of
draft “Official Plans” now sent back in Ontario without the approval
of the minister. The targets would include urban renewal, as well as
firm additions to the housing stock to be allocated appropriately within
the several housing markets in the community.

The search for solutions would be easier if the three or four levels
of government (including regional governments) would only plan
ahead. Since the end of the war planning has become commonplace;
however most economic, social and physical planners would argue that
our housing progress is distinguished by lack of planning. This may
indeed be so, since the major decisions in terms of the number of
dwellings constructed are made by private entrepreneurs whose over-
riding consideration is the profitability of their enterprises. These
decision-makers are strongly affected by housing policies at every level
of government, but they are not primarily concerned with the priorities
of social needs. The main evidence available for these contentions rests
on the fact that never have so many dwellings in Canada been built as

Canada’s Housing Problem 195

those built since 1970.11 We have a substantial surplus of family units
for sale, yet an increasing shortage of rental units and dwellings for
small households.

The crisis has worsened and the plight of low-income groups has
become increasingly worse. The group unable to take care of its housing
requirements within its own resources has widened substantially to
include a significant proportion of all those families and individuals
who fall within the lowest half of the Canadian income distribution.

THE PERSISTENT ISSUES AND THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION

In the early 1980s Canadians face serious economic and social
problems, all of which pose dilemmas for the direction of future
housing policy formulation. The nation is affluent beyond the wildest
expectations of the decade following 1945; yet the proportion of
persons in the labour force who are unable to find employment ranges
from one in four to one in fifteen, depending upon the season and the
region. The nation is affluent, yet one in every five has a standard of
living below that desired for all our citizens. In addition to more than
one million persons who are almost totally dependent upon public
funds for basic support there are probably three times as many who
work full-time (or who wish to work full-time but manage only part-
time work by virtue of the scarcity of employment) and whose annual
earnings bring them within the category of the working poor.

The mystery is that a nation which by every physical, social and
statistical measure is among the best-housed in the world cannot main-
tain a sufficient supply of dwellings to meet the needs of approximately
one in every ten of its population, and that another three in every ten
experience increasing difficulty in meeting their needs within the
housing market. How can this nation (with the third or fourth highest
living standard in the world) convert or divert its resources, wealth and
riches to the solution of a problem which rests within one of the three
basic elements in living standards?

The argument has been waged for half-a-century as to whether the
solution rests in an increase in overall supply or increasingly stringent
governmental controls. In the late 1970s this argument again took the
form of demands for controls on rentals and prices of homes rather
than policies and programs designed to substantially increase the total
supply.

It must be admitted that those who demand controls are correct in
their assertion that to increase the supply of high-priced dwellings for
sale or high-priced apartments for rental will be little improvement.
Controls, on the other hand, will do nothing to increase the supply

196 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

and, unless they are extended into the process of allocation of scarce
housing accommodation to those who need it most, will do little to
help the overall problem. Thus, to improve the supply is insufficient
unless additional financial resources by both the federal and provincial
governments, and even by our regional governments, are directed
towards those groups most in need.

The trouble is that most Canadians have had so many tales of woe
brought to their attention that they know not which policies to advocate.
A great many families have found great difficulty in raising the resources
to purchase their own homes. They occupy apartments at high rentals
in relation to their income, find it increasingly difficult to save for the
downpayment on a home purchase, and inevitably, as their families
expand, are forced to borrow from lending institutions at record-high
rates and from other members of the family, if this is possible, to meet
their own family housing requirements.

We can, therefore, be forgiven if we seem at times to be overwhelmed
by the load of social and economic responsibility thrust upon us. The
issue becomes one of social versus individual responsibility. Since the
1940s Canada has not been backward in assuming such responsibility
through its various levels of government, in enacting legislation, formu-
lating policies, developing housing programs, and implementing such
programs at enormous cost and dedication of public and private effort.
Yet every improvement in the situation appears to mean increasing
demands, higher expectations, and a circular process in which there is
no beginning and no end.

Although we have assumed an increasingly aggressive role in the
housing market, there is not the slightest question that governments
will have to do more, will have to intervene more, and will have to
demand more of independent private house-building organizations and
taxpayers. The key lies in the command of governments over resources.
The residential construction industry can only thrive if both private
and public resources are made available, not only to enable them to
build, but to provide those in need with the opportunity to acquire
adequate housing.

As housing purchasers must inevitably rely upon the resources of
non-governmental lending institutions, government could intervene
more in the manner in which these financial resources are dispensed.
Government could prescribe banks, trust companies, insurance com-
panies, and other lending institutions to devote a greater proportion of
their privately held resources to housing accommodation or could
prescribe rates of mortgage interest by subsidizing either the lending
institutions or the ultimate consumers.*? Governments could prescribe
the total framework within which residential construction would take
place without stifling the house-building industry, without nationalizing

Canada’s Housing Problem 197

the lending institutions or the house builders, or, for that matter, without
turning the nation into a totalitarian state.

Nevertheless, in a democratic society, government cannot force the
building industry to restrict its activity to any one province or even to
Canada. In the mid-1970s several large development organizations
turned their attention to more profitable markets in the United States
and to the development of shopping centres rather than house building.

Government could prescribe that a proportion of residential house-
building activity be devoted to those who are most disadvantaged in
the housing market. We have certainly not yet reached the limit of
providing for the lowest-income individuals and families by rent-geared-
to-income housing, housing for sale at subsidized interest rates, and
housing on leased government-owned lots, despite the fact that such
programs are currently out of favour; nor have we reached. the limit
of the proportion of housebuilding activity directed to the lower half
of the income distribution.

If this means that there will be fewer costly dwellings built in
Canada over the next five, ten or twenty years, very few Canadians
will suffer. It may be that the upper-third of our income receivers will
have to devote resources to enlarging, remodelling or rehabilitating
their existing dwellings to meet their higher aspirations. If we build
more standardized and less customized housing, and more of medium
density rather than in the style of the great apartment era of the
1960s, very few Canadians will suffer. There is nothing sacrosanct in
the proposition that an acre of serviced land can only accommodate
one to five dwellings. Neither is there anything sacrosanct in the doctrine
that high density multiple apartment dwellings should be built wherever
possible in urban areas; this is only likely to involve a greater return
to the entrepreneur and less likelihood of accommodating family house-
holds with children. Somewhere between these extremes, which con-
stitute our experience over the past thirty years, is the middle position
of medium density, intensive urban development, but controlled and
planned urban growth.

One issue has certainly been settled during the past twenty-five
years. Canadians are no longer afraid of government interference in
the housing market, of vast governmental allocations of funds (parti-
cularly since they take the form of repayable loans), or of a public
role in the development and allocation of housing accommodation.
“Subsidy” is no longer a dreaded word to those who must be taxed to
assist the “dependent” poor, the working poor and the working class.
Nevertheless, the social attitudes of Canadians formed during the years.
1919 and 1949 have by no means disappeared. Public housing still
conveys the notions of charity, worthlessness among the poor, and
troublesome people residing in neighbourhoods where public sanitation

198 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

has replaced the disorder of the slum without removing entirely the
social breakdown which characterized the slums of the first half of the
twentieth century.?

The ultimate solution to Canada’s housing dilemma lies in an
aspiration. There must be a fundamental change in the attitude of
Canadians towards housing in general. Housing must be provided for
all members of society, not only for those who have adequate resources
to meet their own needs. This proposition must take the form of a
concept of housing as a public service.

In the language of social administration, housing must be regarded
as a “social utility’ — a requirement of all people which must be
provided by the society for all its people. Housing accommodation
must be viewed as we conceive the requirement that supplies of pure
water be provided to all, that facilities be made available to dispose of
waste products through sewage treatment, that roadways, sidewalks and
street lighting be provided, and that educational facilities be available
for children. The truth is that without decent and adequate food, with-
out clothing appropriate for our climatic conditions and without housing
accommodation adequate in both physical and social terms, all other
public and social utilities are eminently wasted.

There is a solution to the long-term housing problem but a major

_change in the attitudes of Canadians towards the provision of housing

as a social need is required and a great deal more planning than has
been evident during the past thirty-five years is necessary. We can no
longer aspire to be primarily a nation of home owners, because the
very pace of our urban economic development makes it absurd to
remain wedded to the assumptions of 1945 or 1955. The assumptions
of the past with respect to those in need of assistance must be swept
away. Furthermore, the term “public housing” should no longer be
used to mean assistance only to the very poor. Social housing policy
must mean the intervention of all levels of government to ensure that
the distribution of housing shal! be in the national interest. Moreover,
the terms “assisted rental housing” and “assisted home ownership” are
infinitely preferred to “public housing”.

It is not easy to formulate a statement of solution, although the
words come easy. The problem is one of maintaining a balance between
optimism and dire pessimism. As a serious student of Canada’s housing
progress during the past forty years I find it very difficult to be optimistic
but it would be fatalism to be otherwise.

Canada’s Housing Problem 199

NOTES

1Albert Rose, “Canadian Housing Policies”, a background paper prepared
for the Canadian Conference on Housing, October 20-23, 1968, sponsored
by the Canadian Welfare Council.

2The name was changed from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation
as of January 1, 1979.

8A senior member of the cabinet during the years 1946-56, and at the
time, the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply, responsible for housing
policy. See H. S. M. Carver, Houses for Canadians (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press 1948) p. 4.

4The number of family households in Canada increased from 3,024,285
in 1951 to 5,633,940 in 1976 — a rise of 86.3 per cent. During the same
quarter-century non-family households rose from 385,010 to 1,532,150 —
an increase of 398 per cent. CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978,
Table 119, p. 96.

5CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978 (Ottawa: 1979) Table 23
and Table 26, p. 21-22. See also Statistics Canada, Canadian Statistical
Review (Ottawa: December, 1979) p. 18.

6Canadian Housing Statistics, 1978, Table 120, p. 97.

7The Canadian Council on Social Development, Housing Rehabilitation
(Ottawa: 1974) pp. 159, passim.

83CMHC, Speaking Notes for Mr. R. V. Hession, president. An address
to the Canadian Association of Housing and Renewal Officials (Fredericton,
N.B., June 28, 1977) pp. 7-11.

°L. B. Smith, “Urban Canada: Problems and Prospects, Housing in
Canada, Research Monograph 2 (Ottawa: 1971) pp. 31-37.

WThose over 65 will thus number 3 million persons or more. See Statistics
Canada, Population Projections for Canada and the Provinces, 1972-2001
(Ottawa: Information Canada) June 1974, pp. 74-76.

CMHC, Canadian Housing Statistics 1978 (Ottawa: 1979) Table 1,
pl.
12This is precisely, of course, what was intended in the Assisted Home

Ownership Program, now terminated. Most provinces supplemented the
federal subsidies to home purchasers.

18Toronto Real Estate Board, How to Build Canada Better, A study of
public and private housing (Toronto: July 1979) p. 44.

APPENDIX A

Provincial Legislation in Housing and
Urban Renewal in the 1960s

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Title and Date of Legislation

The British Columbia Housing Act 1960. This legislation was
formally cited as The Housing Act, R.S.B.C. 1960, C. 183.
The Provincial Home Acquisition Act, 1967.

General Objectives

The early legislation was designed to consolidate previous enact-
ments, particularly sections of The Municipal Act, and to clarify the
provincial role in participating with Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation within the National Housing Act, 1954. The Home
Acquisition Act followed the Provincial Home Owner Grant Act of
1957, which was essentially a property tax rebate for home owners.

Major Provisions

Until 1967, when a housing management commission was created,
the 1960 act basically enabled the province to operate within Section 35

201

202 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

(later Sections 40 and 43) of the National Housing Act. With the
development of a housing management commission the two existing
local housing authorities, Vancouver and Prince Rupert, were dis-
banded.

The Provincial Home Acquisition Act provided grants or second
mortgages for first time purchasers of both new and existing housing.
More favourable terms were available in the case of new housing, in
line with the government’s strong preference for home ownership.

Special Features

None in the 1960s; British Columbia already had one of the most
active programs for elderly citizens housing through the Elderly
Citizen’s Housing Aid Act of 1955.

ALBERTA

Title and Date of Legislation

“The Alberta Housing Act”. An Act to Co-operate with the Govern-
ment of Canada and Other Public Authorities for the Provision of
Housing and Urban Renewal, April 1965.

An Act to Amend the Alberta Housing Act, April 1967.

General Objectives

To enable and encourage provincial and municipal participation in
public housing and urban renewal under the 1964 amendments to the
National Housing Act.

Major Provisions

The Alberta Housing Act placed the onus of responsibility upon the
municipalities to acquire, undertake, carry to completion, maintain and
operate public housing projects or other housing accommodation within
the municipality with the approval of the province.

Amendments of 1967 authorized the Government of Alberta to
establish the Alberta Housing and Urban Renewal Corporation.

Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban Renewal 203
Special Features

The new corporation issued a brief mimeographed statement of the
“Programmes under the Purview of the Alberta Housing and Urban
Renewal Corporation”. These included: urban renewal, public housing,
co-operative housing, land assembly programmes, university student
housing, provincial staff housing, housing for migratory workers, and
elderly citizen housing.

SASKATCHEWAN

Title and Date of Legislation

“The Housing and Urban Renewal Act, 1966”. An Act respecting
Public Housing, received Royal assent March 30th, 1966.

General Objectives

To enunciate the powers of the province to enter into agreements
with the various parties involved in federal-provincial housing projects
and to delineate the powers of a municipality to enter into such
agreements.

Major Provisions

The onus of responsibility was placed upon the municipalities which
were given relatively broad powers under 5.6. These included most of
the programmes specified in Section 35A to D of the National Housing
Act.

Municipalities were encouraged to carry out urban renewal studies,
aided by a 25 per cent provincial grant, and to prepare and implement
urban renewal schemes. The act also gave municipalities the power to
pass by-laws prescribing standards for the maintenance and occupancy
of property in urban renewal areas, providing for appeal against enforce-
ment of such by-laws.

Special Features

The Saskatchewan legislation did not include a provision for the
creation of a provincial housing corporation.

204 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

MANITOBA

Title and Date of Legislation

“The Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation Act” received
assent on May 4, 1967.

General Objectives

To create a Crown corporation with appropriate powers including
the right to enter into agreements with all of the respective governmental
bodies involved in programmes under the aegis of Section 35 of the
National Housing Act.

Major Provisions

Part II of the Act entitled “Public Housing” stated the objectives of
public housing, the circumstances under which it should be undertaken
and permitted the broadest possible activity of a provincial government
in this field. It specified further that the sites of proposed projects must
be chosen within approved planning schemes of local governments or
the Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg.

The corporation was permitted to lend moneys to a municipality or
a housing authority equal to the usual provincial capital contribution
in the 90-10 arrangement propounded in the 1964 NHA amendments.

Part IIL of the Manitoba Act permitted the new provincial corpora-
tion to enter into agreements with respect to urban renewal schemes;
the latter, again, must be defined within local or metropolitan planning
proposals,

Special Features
The Manitoba legislation encompassed 49 sections within 5 major

parts, running 26 pages in length. On prima facie evidence it appeared to
be a full-blown development of provincial assumption of responsibility.

Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban Renewal 205

ONTARIO

Title and Date of Legislation

“An Act to incorporate the Ontario Housing Corporation” was
passed in April 1964, the first of the major provincial initiatives
following the 1964 amendments to the National Housing Act. The
formal citation is The Ontario Housing Corporation Act, R.S.O., 1970,
C, 317,

General Objectives

The legislation established a corporation without share capital, under
the name of the “Ontario Housing Corporation”, to serve as the agency
of the Government of Ontario in its relationships with the Government
of Canada.

Major Provisions

This was a short law (15 sections) which did not effectively outline
the nature of the new roles that a provincial housing corporation might
play in the housing market and gave little hint of the activity in public
housing that was to develop within two to three years in Ontario.

The most significant sections of the act (Sections 6-8) empowered
the new corporation to assume most of the responsibilities laid down
under the Housing Development Act, originally passed in 1948.
(R.S.O., 1970, C. 213). The new corporation could acquire, hold and
dispose of real property from time-to-time and was deemed to be a
management corporation under the terms of the previous legislation.

Special Features

The Ontario Housing Corporation was given extensive powers to
raise its own funds by way of loans or the issue and sale of debentures,
bills or notes, to be guaranteed by the Ontario government. Such
guarantees appear in just one other provincial housing statute of the
1960s: that of Newfoundland.

206 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

QUEBEC
Title and Date of Legislation

The Quebec Housing Corporation Act received formal assent on
June 29, 1967.

General Objectives
In the language of “notes” appended to the act,

This bill proposes a general law whereby all municipalities will now
be able to renew any part of their territory and equip low-rental
lodgings for persons with small incomes, with the assistance of the
Quebec Housing Corporation constituted by this act; the corporation
will be able to grant subsidies and make loans for such purposes.

Major Provisions

The Quebec legislation was divided into seven “sections” (French)
or “divisions” (English). Division II formulated the organization of
the Societe @habitation du Quebec (Quebec Housing Corporation) to
be composed of. five members. Two persons would be appointed for
ten years, one of whom would be appointed president of the corpora-
tion; the other three members were to be appointed from public
servants, one of whom would become vice-president.

Division III, entitled “Renewal of the Territory of a Municipality”,
contained four main sections: (i) renewal projects (urban renewal
schemes); (ii) renewal programs; (iii) approval of renewal programs;
and (iv) carrying out of renewal programs. Municipalities were
required to submit proposals to the corporation for approval through
the various stages of project definition, plan preparation and implemen-
tation of renewal programmes. Steps to rehouse persons displaced by
renewal were to be specifically described, taking into account their
income.

“Low-Rental Lodgings” was the title of Division IV which comprised
five important parts. These encompassed municipal programs, muni-
cipal housing bureaus (non-profit housing corporations), financing of
municipal low-rental housing activities, loans to non-profit organiza-
tions, and the establishment of grievance bureaus in each municipality.

The remainder of the act dealt with technical matters concerning
by-laws, agreements, financial provisions and the like.

Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban Renewal 207
Special Features

The Quebec legislation was the most extensive passed by any of the
provinces in the 1960s. It was further distinctive in that it contained a
series of explanatory notes which were, to some degree, a statement of
provincial policy in housing and urban renewal.

The success of the Quebec legislation appeared to depend in large
measure upon local planning and local initiatives.

NEW BRUNSWICK

Title and Date of Legislation

The New Brunswick Housing Act, assented to May 19, 1967.

General Objectives

To empower the government of the province to enter into agreements
with, and to borrow funds from, the federal government and its agency,
to conduct special studies, to prepare and implement urban renewal
schemes, and the like.

Major Provisions

The legislation initiated the New Brunswick Housing Corporation,
consisting of a president (to serve as general manager and chief
executive officer) and four other members. The objects and purposes
of the corporation were stated in Section 9 and nine sub-sections of
description were required.

The governing objective appeared to be “to obtain the participation
of municipalities in housing projects” but additional objectives included:
the study of new housing types and construction methods, and studying
“the usefulness and application of co-operative, condominium and other
forms of housing ownership and their application to housing needs in
New Brunswick.”

Special Features

The legislation was unique since it permitted the province to make
agreements with respect to “training in the construction and designing

208 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

of houses, in land planning or community planning or in the manage-
ment or operation of housing projects.” This provision presumably
permitted subsidization of the educational programmes of students in
urban and regional planning, or in housing administration.

New Brunswick was the only province to table a white paper on
housing in the legislative assembly prior to royal assent. The White
Paper on Housing was composed of two major parts: a brief history
and exposition of Canadian housing development during the twentieth
century with particular referénce to the role of the provinces, and “A
Housing Strategy for New Brunswick” outlining government policy and
the specific roles contemplated for the new corporation in public
housing, limited-dividend housing, rural housing and urban renewal
fields.

NOVA SCOTIA

Title and Date of Legislation

The new legislation was cited as “The Housing Development Act,
Bill No. 38 of 1966”. (R.S.N.S., 1967, C. 129, amended by 1969,
C. 52).

General Objectives

To establish a commission to be known as the “Nova Scotia Housing
Commission” (to consist of not fewer than eight and not more than
fifteen members) which would assume all the rights and privileges of
the previous Nova Scotia Housing Commission which had existed for
more than forty years.

Major Provisions

The duties of the housing commission were specified as follows: to
study housing needs and conditions; to make recommendations for the
improvement of housing conditions; to encourage and promote public
and private initiative in housing and urban renewal matters; and to
carry out and perform such other duties regarding housing and urban
renewal as may be directed by the governor-in-council,

Part I of the legislation contained the usual clauses which permitted
the government of the province to make agreements with all other levels
of government through the housing commission. Other parts of the
legislation encompassed public housing and co-operative housing.

Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban Renewal 209

Special Features

The unique part of the Nova Scotia legislation was Part III, entitled
“Co-operative Housing”. The housing commission was enabled to
“encourage and promote the formation and organization of companies
for the purpose of building and providing sufficient and suitable housing
units in any part of the province and selling and leasing the housing
units.” Moreover, the commission could advance loans to such com-
panies, was responsible for inspecting the plans and the construction,
and would determine and fix the maximum rentals to be charged by
co-operative housing companies.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

Title and Date of Legislation

The Prince Edward Island Housing Authority Act was given royal
assent on April 7, 1966.

General Objectives

An authority (corporation) of not less than seven members was
established by the act “to provide family housing units for families of
low income”.

Major Provisions

The authority could undertake housing projects either alone or in
conjunction with any municipality together with the Central Mortgage
and Housing Corporation.

The legislation specifically empowered the new provincial organiza-
tion to “purchase, lease, acquire, convert or construct, maintain and
operate property, both real and personal, required or useful for the
carrying out of the functions of the authority.”

Special Features

The new authority was given the power to borrow money either
under the provision of the National Housing Act or by temporary or
other loans from any chartered bank.

210 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

NEWFOUNDLAND

Title and Date of Legislation

The Housing Act 1966, (S.N., C. 87) was followed by “An Act to
Incorporate the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation”
which received royal assent on April 25, 1967. This act required
twenty-two printed pages encompassing forty-four sections.

General Objectives

The legislation created a corporation to act for the province in the
broad fields of housing and urban renewal. The new organization was
deemed to be a housing authority constituted under Section 15 of The
Housing Act 1966 to enable it to expropriate land and buildings within
the purposes of The Expropriation Act, 1964.

Major Provisions

Exactly one-half of the act was concerned with the financing of the
activities of the corporation. The corporation could borrow money for
any of its purposes through the issue of bonds, debentures or other
securities. The minister, acting for the province, could unconditionally
guarantee any loans in Canadian or “United States of America cur-
rency” to be raised from time-to-time by the corporation.

Although the term “research” was not used, the corporation was
empowered “to foster, through scientific investigation and technology,
knowledge of housing and of the means of dealings with any conditions
relating to the development, control and direction thereof.”

Special Features

Newfoundland was the only province, other than Ontario, to specify
guarantees of loans raised by the housing corporation, and the only
Province to refer to the possibility of borrowing in the United States.

The new legislation included in Section 25, a series of powers which
gave the new corporation the complexion of an urban development
organization rather than a housing organization. These features
included:

1. the power to service land through the creation of streets, bridges,

sewers, pavements, and the like, “necessary to the development

Provincial Legislation in Housing and Urban Renewal 211

of lands for urban or suburban uses and for housing and com-
munity development”;

2. the power to develop open space and the landscaping thereof
through the creation of parks, recreation grounds, swimming
pools and similar places for recreation;

3. the power “to procure the installation of tramway lines, trolley
bus lines . . . power and light distribution systems . . . gas
distribution systems, telephone systems and the like”.

Newfoundland was the only province to suggest that the new

corporation might enter the fields of public transportation and public
utilities.

APPENDIX B

Development of the National Housing Act

TITLES OF PARTS OF THE ACT

Part 1938
I Dominion Housing
Loans

Il Low-Rental
Housing

Wil Assistance to
Municipalities in
Respect of Low-
Cost Housing

VIL

1944

Housing for Home
Owners

Housing for Rental

Purposes

Rural Housing

Home Improvement
and Home
Extension Loans

Housing Research
and Community
Planning

General

213

1954

Insured Mortgage
Loans

Housing for Rental
Purposes and Land
assembly

Housing Redevelopment
(1954)

Urban Redevelopment
(1956)

Home Improvement
Loans and Home
Extension Loans

Housing Research
and Community
Planning

Federal-Provincial
Projects

General

214 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Part

UL.1

IV.1

IV.2

Vil

Vili

VILA

TITLES OF PARTS OF THE ACT

1964

Insured Mortgage
Loans

Housing for Rental
Purposes and
Land Assembly

Urban Renewal

Home Improvement
Loans and Home
Extension Loans

Housing Research
and Community
Planning

Public Housing

General

1973

Insured Mortgage
Loans

Housing for Rental
Purposes and
Land Assembly

Urban Renewal

Neighbourhood
Improvement
Program

Home Improvement
Loans and Home
Extension Loans

Rehabilitation and
Conversion of

Existing Residential

Buildings

Loans to Facilitate
Home Ownership

Housing Research
and Community
Planning

Public Housing

New Communities

Loans for Student
Housing Projects

Loans for Municipal

Sewage Treatment
Projects

General

1979

Insured Mortgage
Loans

Housing for Rental
Purposes and
Land Assembly

Land Acquisition
and Leasing

Urban Renewal

Neighbourhood
Improvement
Program

Home Improvement
Loans and Home
Extension Loans

Rehabilitation and
Conversion of
Existing Residential
Buildings

Loans to Facilitate
Home Ownership

Housing Research
and Community
Planning

Public Housing

New Communities

Loans for Student
Housing Projects

Water and Sewerage
Projects
Community Services

General

Index

Andras, Robert K., 48-49, 50, 69, 70
Assisted Home Ownership Program,
55f., 92, 97, 178

Barnard Study, 156

Basford, Ron, 54, 64

Blumenfeld, Hans, 145

British Columbia Housing
Management Commission, 82

Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation, 11, 24, 29, 31,
34, 49, 50, 58-59, 62, 63,
78-79, 125, 168

City of Toronto Non-Profit Housing
Corporation, 22

Comay, Eli, 75, 111, 150

Curtis Report, 28, 30

Community Integrated Housing
Program (CIHP), 118

Co-operative Housing Assistance, 57,
91

Davis, William, 75, 111

Danson, Barnett, 82

Dennis, Michael, 11, 52

Dennis and Fish Report, see
Programs in Search of a
Policy

Donnison, D. V., 3

Dominion Housing Act, 1935, 3, 166

Dunhill Development Corporation,
82, 83

Eligibility, for public housing, 9

Federation of Ontario Tenant

Associations, 106
Filtering down process, 2, 53
Fish, Susan, 11, 52f.

Galbraith, John K., 36
Godfrey, Paul, 129

Hellyer, Paul, 43, 48, 61, 69
Hignett, Herbert, 70

Home Ownership Made Easy
(HOME), 118, 150
Housing,
cost of construction, 5
co-operative, 60
crisis, 143, 191f.
crowding, 168-170
for Canada’s native people, 62,
171
function of, 11
public, see Public housing
rental, 169
type of, 5.10, 173, 176f.
Housing Ontario ’74, 75, 114, 116,
117, 120, 121, 123, 124, 135
Housing policies, 16, 145f., 181
constraints upon, 18f., 144
decentralization of, 21ff., 36, 122
definitions of, 17
economic context, Sf., 167
families, 170, 178
formulation of, 16, 74
goals of, 20f., 35
“housing by headline”, 15
municipalities, 185
non-family households, 166, 172
underlying philosophy, 18
Housing and Urban Development
Association of Canada
(HUDAC), 63

Income determination, 9
Intergovernmental relations, 29f.
Interim Metro Housing Policy, 76

Jaffary, Karl, 132

Land banking, 60, 91, 128, 150ff.
definitions of, 150ff.
in Ontario, 97
objectives of, 60
Limited Dividend Housing
Corporations, 38
Lithwick, Harvey, 11, 51, 53, 146

215

216 Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980)

Lithwick Report, 51
Living Room, 75, 127
Local Housing authorities, 4, 37, 64

Marsh Report, 28, 30

Metropolitan Toronto Housing
Authority, 25

Ministry of State for Urban Affairs,
11, 48f., 50

Mortgage rates, 5, 156

National Housing Act,

of 1938, 3, 166

of 1944, 18, 19, 28, 160

of 1949, 21

of 1953, 18, 19

of 1954, 19

of 1964, 38ff.

of 1973, 54ff., 58
Neighbourhood Improvement

Program, 57f., 63, 64, 121

New Communities Program, 61
Nicholson, Lorne, 82

Ontario Advisory Task Force, 75,
106f., 122, 123, 147, 156

Ontario Home Renewal Program,
120, 121

Ontario Housing Action Program
(OHAP), 116, 150

Ontario Housing Corporation, 63,
69, 101ff., 124

Ontario Land Corporation, 121

Ontario Mortgage Corporation, 116

Poor law philosophy, 90
Programs in Search of a Policy, 5,
52f.
Public housing,
administrators of, 23
applicants for, 174, 183
assisted rental housing, 116, 118,
177, 187
attitudes towards, 3, 143f., 163ff.
attitudes towards recipients, 166,
184, 193
decrease in amount constructed,
76, 81
determination of eligibility, 7f.,
9, 168
following World War Two, 23, 31,
32
for families, 85, 167, 177
hostility towards, 30, 31

local housing authorities, 124
Non-Profit Housing Assistance, 57
for one-parent families, 9, 171
policy shift in, 96
pressures for slum clearance, 31
by provinces,
Alberta, 84
British Columbia, 81
Manitoba, 86
New Brunswick, 90
Newfoundland, 94
Nova Scotia, 91
Prince Edward Island, 92
Quebec, 87
Saskatchewan, 85
quantity constructed, 37
reasons for, 163
schools of thought, 24
for senior citizens, 82, 84, 85, 86,
91, 93, 171, 176, 193
for students, 105
types of dwellings, 9, 77
Purchaser protection, 62

Satellite communities, 61

Slum clearance, 63, 164, 165, 171
Spurr, Peter, 147ff.

Subsidies, 6

Randall, Stanley, 70

Regent Park, 31, 47

Rent control, 28

Rental scale, 9, 82

Residential Rehabilitation Assistance
Program (RRAP), 59, 63,
64, 121

Robarts, John P., 133

Rose, Albert, 33, 47

Task Force on Housing and Urban
Development, 43-46, 50, 61,
69

Toronto Housing Company, 2

Trudeau, Pierre E., 43, 48

Urban Canada, 146
Urban development, 30
Urban renewal, see Slum clearance

Veteran’s Rental Housing, 30

Wartime Housing Limited, 28, 29
Welch, Robert, 113

Winters, Robert H., 21

Wolman, 7

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Full text of "Canadian Housing Policies (1935-1980), by Albert Rose, Toronto: Butterworths, 1980."

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